


To See If We Could Become Something More

by thelilacfield



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bisexual Wanda Maximoff, Christmas Fluff, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Family Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Not Actually Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-17 15:42:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 56,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13080084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelilacfield/pseuds/thelilacfield
Summary: Christmas is the worst time to be miserably single. Everyone around her is happily loved up or looking for their next conquest, and her girlfriend dumped her when she asked for her to come spend the holidays meeting her family.Lucky for Wanda, she has Vision to come home with her. To be mistaken for her boyfriend by her family. Just as she's slowly beginning to realise maybe she wouldn't mind that.Or, 'Wanda Maximoff's Guide to Not Falling In Love With Your Best Friend (And Failing Miserably)'





	1. i thought you were someone to rely on

**A/N:**  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays scarletvision fandom! May the new year bring us many blessings in the shape of  _Infinity War_ content! This was supposed to be a short, fun fic in the same vein as my Halloween special, but as it has gotten away from me by many,  _many_  words (22K and counting y'all) I've decided to start posting now as a drawn-out gift to this small but wonderful fandom! Hope you all enjoy, and if you are feeling the giving spirit of the holiday please consider leaving me some feedback! :)

Chapter title from  _Last Christmas_ by Wham

* * *

**To: Vizh**

**Red lipstick or not with this outfit? [photo]**

**From: Vizh**

**Is that the scarf I got you for Christmas three years ago?**

**To: Vizh**

**Yes! For dorm Secret Santa! Well remembered!**

**From: Vizh**

**I don't know about the red lipstick. Where are you going?**

**To: Vizh**

**Coffee with Nat. We've been together two months now, can you believe it?**

**From: Vizh**

**Then no lipstick, I remember the night you two got together**

**To: Vizh**

**Well that's rude! Guess I won't tell you anything about how this date goes then!**

**From: Vizh**

**How tragic for me to not hear again about your fantastically wonderful girlfriend and her paying for your tea**

**From: Vizh**

**Wanda?**

**From: Vizh**

**I was joking I didn't mean to offend you I'm sorry please don't be mad at me**

**To: Vizh**

**Sorry, eyeliner malfunction! I know I'm obnoxious - no shame here!**

**From: Vizh**

**We've been friends for three years, Wanda, I know you have no shame**

**To: Vizh**

**I'll take that as a compliment! Gotta go or I'm gonna be late to meet my amazing wonderful perfect girlfriend**

**From: Vizh**

**And that would be a national tragedy**

**To: Vizh**

**You know it! Talk later!**

Wrapping her scarf around her neck, smiling at Vision's cologne still lingering slightly on it from his borrowing it walking home from Sam's birthday party at six o'clock in the morning, Wanda grabs her keys from the hook he insisted on installing for her when she moved out of the dorms and branched out as an independent woman and slams the door behind her, euphoria making her footsteps feel light as she darts down the six flights of stairs, heels clicking on the concrete. The harsh winter breeze hits her almost immediately when she steps into the street, foreboding deep grey clouds drifting across the sky and congregating suspiciously over the city, but even the potential of rain can't dull her mood.

For once, the coffee shop isn't filled to the brim with fellow students, the end of the semester meaning most are locked down in their rooms or the library in a haze of caffeine-fuelled self-hatred for not starting work earlier. She winces momentarily at the thought of the stack of work she still has to do, set on the edge of her desk in a thus far unsuccessful attempt to force herself into doing it, but stops worrying so much when she catches a glimpse of Natasha's familiar red hair through the window, her girlfriend glowing like an angel under the warm lights.

Waving at Phil behind the counter, who immediately gives her his usual genial smile and turns to start making her regular order, Wanda darts across the room to the cosy corner booth Natasha has picked for them, leaning across the table to kiss her in greeting. "I missed you," she says sweetly, and Natasha almost looks as if she wants to roll her eyes.

"I've been in absolute deadline hell, seems like all my professors want assignments in this week," she says, and Wanda nods sympathetically, tangling their fingers together across the table.

" _Tell_  me about it, I've got so much to do before I go home, and I'll have to take half a suitcase of books with me to start my reading for next semester," she says, smiling up at Phil when he sets her tea down in front of her. "When are you heading out of here?"

"Twenty-second, doing Christmas with Steve and his mom, and back here on the second of January while my stupid roommate is still with her fancy family in Greece and her fuckbuddy won't be around to bother me," Natasha says, a little viciously, and Wanda once again thanks whatever deity allowed her to find a reasonably-priced apartment that meant she didn't have to get a roommate.

"Well, if you want company, Clint's offering to drive me back whenever I want, in case I get sick of the farm," she says, and Natasha nods. Leaning a little closer, heart fluttering with anticipation, she says, "Or maybe, instead of going to Steve's for Christmas...you could come with me? Lila's bringing her girlfriend, Laura keeps asking me if I'm bringing someone, and I'd really like to bring you." Giving her girlfriend a soft smile, she says, "I  _really_  like you, Nat. You know I do."

"Oh God." The dull words make Wanda's heart thud out of rhythm, and dread take a cold grip of her chest at Natasha's expression. "I didn't want to have to do this and tear our friendship group apart right before Christmas. I'm really sorry, Wanda, but I can't spend Christmas with your family. Because I can't be your girlfriend anymore."

Words she's heard before, no less horrifying, like cold water crashing over her, making her breath short and the room spin for a moment. "What?" she hears herself ask as if listening to someone far away, her voice tremulous with barely-suppressed emotion. "But we're happy! I really like you!"

"I think you've convinced yourself there's something here that there just...isn't," Natasha says, and she doesn't even sound  _sad_. Simply resigned and maybe a little relieved. Like she's been waiting to say it. To shatter Wanda's heart. "We've only been together two months. Hopefully, when the sting fades, we can just go back to being friends."

"How...how can you just  _sit_  there?!" Wanda exclaims, eyes prickling with tears, and she's trying to swallow her emotions and not cry in this very public place. "You're  _breaking up with me_! Can you just show some emotions?!"

"I've known since we got together that this would end up happening," Natasha says, and anger surges up in Wanda's chest, thick and hot and vicious, the fury of someone who just wants to break down.

"So you kept dating me for  _two months_  knowing you were going to dump me?!" Wanda snaps, and Natasha shakes her head, almost pitying.

"I thought maybe dating me would finally make you see what's been in front of all our eyes for months," she says, cryptic and infuriating. "But you obviously need a push to realise. Now you're single, go be happy with the person you really want."

"I want  _you_ ," Wanda insists, breath catching on a sob stuck in her throat, and Natasha just gives a small smile.

"No, you don't," she says, and Wanda can't take it anymore. She aggressively pulls her purse from her bag, throws a five dollar bill onto the table and walks out of the coffeeshop, the cold hitting her in the gut without her coat being buttoned, scarf blowing back against her neck, and her chest hollow with hurt.

Her feet automatically carry her to the apartment block almost more familiar to her than her own, the spare key turned in the entrance door to let herself up, and she notices that the threadbare carpet running up the middle of the stairs has been cleaned for the first time since Vision moved in. Taking the stairs as fast as she can, aching for familiar arms around her and the kind of comfort only her best friend can offer, she knocks on the familiar door with its peeling deep blue paint, breath getting shallower by the second with how hard she's trying to suppress her sobs.

She can't help herself when Vision opens the door, in his same usual dark grey sweater with his collar slightly crooked, feet bare, and bursts into helpless tears. Immediately his arms are around her, enveloping her in the familiar scent of his cologne and his warmth, and one hand is stroking her hair, drawing her gently over the threshold of his apartment and kicking the door shut. "What happened?" he asks, rubbing her shuddering shoulders.

"Nat dumped me," she whispers, horrified at how saying it makes the words become real, and feels Vision tense up. "I asked if she wanted to come home with me for Christmas, because Laura keeps asking if I want to bring someone, and she said she couldn't be my girlfriend anymore. She...she said she always knew it would end with us breaking up."

"I can't think of anything more idiotic than getting into a relationship with you and choosing to end it," Vision says, and she lifts her head to look at him, some weaker part of her heart aching to defend Natasha.

"She's your friend too," she says, and Vision shakes his head.

"No one is my friend if they hurt you," he says, and kisses her on the forehead, a gesture so sweet it makes tears of desperate gratitude prickle behind her eyes. "You know that. I stopped speaking to that boy you were talking to on my course after he stood you up - and I use the term 'boy' in the loosest possible definition."

"Rat might be a more accurate term," she says, and he chuckles, kissing the top of her head and drawing her into another tight hug, and she rubs her cheek against the soft material of his sweater before jerking back. "God, sorry, I'm getting make-up all over you."

"It'll wash out," he says soothingly, cradling her head against his chest. "Don't worry about anything." Kissing her temple, the same gestures he repeats every time she ends up at his door in an emotional mess, he asks, "What do you want to do tonight? I have wine, I have a coupon for that pizza place you like, I have vodka, I have chocolate, I have tequila, I have everything I need to make paprikash, I have a Netflix subscription and I can take a night off from studying."

"Don't talk to me about studying, I still have eight thousand words to write before the end of the semester," she says, muffled into his chest, and he squeezes her a little tighter in comfort. "On the plus side, my apartment is incredibly tidy now. And I'm mostly packed to go to the farm next week."

"Give Clint and Laura my best," Vision says softly, and Wanda pulls her head out of his chest and gives him a weak, watery smile. "I'm going to make you paprikash. There's ice cream in the freezer, wine in the kitchen."

"You know what I want," she says with an attempt at a wet laugh, and he just keeps his eyes on hers, hands sliding down her arms to tangle their fingers together. "Do you still have my blanket?"

"I think you'll find it's my blanket now," he says, and she smacks playfully at him, and he releases her hands and turns away from her, letting her unwrap her scarf and unbutton her coat, hanging both on her usual hook, the deep red sleeve of her coat rubbing shoulders with the navy of Vision's.

Toeing her shoes off and kicking them into the corner, she collapses onto the couch, the familiar soft cushions enveloping her, and reaches for the TV buttons. "Vizh?" she calls out, and Vision looks up from sorting through his kitchen drawers for the recipe he's had since her first homesick night in freshman year, and she gestures to the unopened whiskey bottle waiting on the low table. "Since when did you start drinking whiskey?"

"Sam was going to come over tonight, maybe bring T'Challa, he wanted to take a break from planning the frat's Christmas party," Vision answers, and Wanda straightens up immediately.

"You can't cancel on-"

"Yes, I can," he insists, and tears of gratitude prickle behind her eyes. "You're my best friend, you're more important to me than anyone. Sam can drink whiskey anywhere if he's that desperate."

"Knowing him, he probably will," she observes, and he laughs as he opens the fridge and sets the correct ingredients out on the counter to reach room temperature. Her heart swells with affection as she watches him set the ice-cream on the counter for later, pick exactly the wine she would've chosen from the rack and take two glasses from the cupboard, coming to sit next to her and producing her blanket from beneath the couch.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asks gently, and she wraps the blanket tighter around her, burying herself in the scent of home.

"I think she was going to break up with me after Christmas anyway," she says, her voice small and sad, her chest hollow with hurt. "She basically implied she was only staying with me to avoid wrecking the friendship group at this time of year."

"I don't understand how anyone could break up with you," Vision says, sliding an arm around her, leaning in against her, and she lets all her weight fall onto him, his familiar warmth. "You're perfect."

"I'm really,  _really_  not," she says. "If I was perfect, I wouldn't have been dumped by literally every person I've dated in the last three years. I thought Nat was going to be  _different_."

"You're perfect, Wanda," he says, soft and forceful at the same time, and she looks up at him to see such sincerity in his eyes. "You're kind and intelligent and beautiful and everything anyone could possibly want, and anyone who is lucky enough to have your heart and still chooses to break it is so stupid I can't fathom it."

She blinks and a tear falls, sliding down her cheek, and he reaches over to smudge it away. Before he can lean away from her, she wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him close. "I love you," she says, clinging to him. "I don't know what I did to deserve a friend like you."

"As I remember it, you offered a complete stranger your hip flask after his roommate kicked him out because his girlfriend was over," Vision says quietly, and she giggles through her emotions at the memory of the night they met. "And I've never looked back."

"I never want you to," she says, kissing his cheek. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Spend significantly more time in your own apartment, probably," he observes, and she smiles against his shoulder. She feels his chest rise when he takes a deep breath, how he tenses up slightly, and says, "I was going to call you tomorrow so we could have dinner. There's something I want to tell you."

"Oh my God, did you get that internship?!" she asks, all sadness chased away by excitement for him. "Vizh, that's amazing, it's such a good opportunity and they're gonna pay you and you can quit that job that makes you miserable and-"

"They haven't got back to me yet, if I don't hear by the fifteenth I didn't get it," he says, and her shoulders slump in defeat. "No, it's something else." His gaze drops away from hers, and for a moment it's silent but for their breathing. "Wanda, I-"

Her phone starting to ring makes them both start violently, and Wanda grabs for it immediately, her mind filling in some beautiful romantic comedy scenario where Natasha is calling to say it was all a mistake, they should get back together, she loves her. Blind hope fades and her heart sinks when the screen shows Laura's photo, and she takes a breath to turn on her happiest, brightest voice before she hits the button to answer. "Hey!"

"Hi sweetheart, just checking in," Laura says, and hearing her adopted mother's voice makes Wanda want to burst into tears and tell her everything. But she never even told Laura or Clint that she was dating Natasha. "How are your assignments going?"

"Backwards," she says, and Laura laughs.

"Funny, Coop and Lila said exactly the same thing when I spoke to them, and Nate's been suspiciously helpful around the house to avoid his homework," she says, and Wanda forces herself to laugh faintly. "You'd think the four of you were blood siblings."

"Can't wait to see them all," Wanda says, and she genuinely means it. "You saved the decorating for when we're all back, right?"

"Lila would refuse to speak to me for months if I decorated the house without her, no matter how much Clint complains about putting up the lights to have to take them down two weeks later," Laura says, and Wanda laughs at the thought of her sister. "Especially since she's bringing Cassie."

"I'm guessing Coop isn't bringing anybody," Wanda says, and Laura laughs.

"I'm not holding my breath to see that boy show interest in anyone," she says, and Wanda smirks into the phone. "What about you, sweetheart? Are you bringing anyone?"

"I..." Glancing at Vision, smiling at her, she says, "Hold on a minute, Laura." Shoving her phone between two folds on the blanket, she asks him, "What are you doing for Christmas?"

"Probably just going to stay here," Vision says with a slight shrug. "T'Challa could be around, we sort of talked about meeting up so neither of us is alone, but the weather in Wakanda has turned around so he'll probably be able to get home. Sam offered New Year's with his family."

"Come with me," she says, giving his surprised expression a sweet smile. "Everyone's welcome at a Barton family Christmas. You'll like the farm, it's quiet and secluded but there's a reasonably big town nearby to get away from family time. And I won't have to go for so many walks in the cold to get a strong enough signal to stay on the phone with you for longer than ten minutes."

"Are you sure Clint and Laura won't mind?" Vision asks anxiously, and she shakes her head.

"Laura will be thrilled to have someone else to mother, and you're taller than Clint so he'll be happy to not be climbing stepladders constantly to help decorate," she says, and Vision gives her a slight smile. "So is that a yes? You're coming to the farm with me?"

"Might as well have a nice family Christmas for once in my life," he says, sadness passing like a shadow over his face, and she squeezes his bicep sympathetically. "I'd love to."

Beaming at him and kissing his cheek in excitement, she pulls her phone out of the blanket and asks, "You still there, Laura?"

"I'm here," she says, and Wanda smiles sweetly when Vision brushes a kiss to her temple and stands up from the couch, crossing into the kitchen and setting a pan on the stovetop.

"I'm bringing Vision with me for Christmas," she says, and hears a slight squeal from Laura. "He doesn't have anywhere else to go."

"Don't make it sound like  _that_ , Wanda!" Vision exclaims, a slight flush spilling over the tops of his cheekbones, and she blows him a kiss.

"Are you with this boy right now?" Laura asks, excitement running like electricity through her voice.

"I'm always with Vizh, Laura," Wanda says, smiling at him when he looks up from intensely concentrating on measuring ingredients. "I'm at his apartment, he's making me dinner and we're gonna watch a movie."

"Oh, sweetheart, he sounds like a charmer," Laura says, and Wanda giggles into the phone. "I'll tell Clint you're bringing someone, he'll be thrilled. There's always room for one more. Bye, sweetheart, I'll call you soon. Don't work too hard!"

"I'll try," Wanda says, and smiles into the phone when Laura hangs up, feeling lighter after talking to her family. Tucking herself back inside her blanket, she smiles at Vision and says, "Laura says you sound like a charmer and she's excited to meet you."

"Well, I'm excited to meet your family," Vision says, smiling at her through the smoke curling up from his cooking.

"Remember, it's only a pinch of paprika," she says, sweetly teasing, and the tips of his ears turn red.

"That was once and it was three years ago," he mumbles, just loud enough for her to hear, and she giggles at his blushing.

"You tried very hard for me, and it was very sweet," she says, and he gives her a bashful smile.

Her phone vibrates again, Vision's following a moment later, and she bites her lip before she reaches over to open the notification.

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: LISTEN UP MOTHERFUCKERS I'M ABOUT TO LEARN YOU A THING! Frat party. 8pm to whenever the hell I decide I'm too tired/drunk to keep my eyes open and kick out the stragglers. 15th. Be there or be a bad friend.**

**T'Challa Udaku to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: The weather in Wakanda has settled so I'm flying home on the 14th.**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Okay, Kitty Cat is a bad friend. Anyone else?**

"Are you going to the frat party?" Wanda asks aloud, glancing over at Vision frowning at his recipe, obviously deep in concentration.

"Might as well," Vision says, as enthusiastic as ever about parties. "My last exam is the thirteenth. You?"

"I'm supposed to be heading home on the sixteenth," she says. "And...well, Nat will be there. She never misses a chance to outdrink frat boys."

When she looks up from fidgeting with the ridged edge of her blanket, catching her nails on the stitching, she finds Vision looking at her with such intensity behind her eyes that her breath catches in her throat. "Natasha's not worth missing out on a night with our friends," he says. "I won't let her anywhere near you, Wanda. I promise."

"I don't know, I don't want it to feel awkward because me and Nat are in the same place and everyone is trying to avoid us being together," she says, and Vision leaves the food cooking, crossing over to sit next to her and reaching over to take her hand.

"Come to the party," he says softly, but keeping his gaze steady on hers in a way that makes her chest feel a little tight. "Please."

Silence holds both of them in stasis, gazing into each other's eyes, and Wanda's chest grows tight, her breath trapped by the way Vision is looking at her, and she realises for perhaps the first time exactly how  _blue_  his eyes are, bluer than the summer sky arched over the farm. And he's still holding her hand, his skin warm to the touch, and heat is rising on her shoulders and neck, spilling a flush into her cheeks, and her mind has gone blank but for these small observations.

The shrill ringing of the oven timer makes them both start, Vision moving away from her so fast to attend to their food, and she shakes off the split-second feeling of hollow disappointment when his hand leaves hers. As soon as he's finished cooking, he'll be next to her for the whole night, her best friend with his soft sweaters that make him so comfortable to curl up to. Tucking her feet up beneath her, trying to steady her slightly shallow breathing, she reaches for her persistently buzzing phone to check the inevitable flood of messages from the groupchat.

**Steve Rogers to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Is Thor going to insist on every keg being empty before the last people leave again?**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: We ordered less kegs this year. Don't need to be suffering the way we all were after last year's party**

**Sharon Carter to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: You can say that again**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: We ordered less kegs this year. Don't need to be suffering the way we all were after last year's party**

**Sharon Carter to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I hate you**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: You love me and want to worship my body**

**Sharon Carter to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Don't try it, Wilson. Guess I'm definitely bringing Maria to this party**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Oooooh, you're bringing the girl? Is it maybe getting serious?**

**Sharon Carter to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: You'll have to wait to find out!**

**Natasha Romanoff to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I'll be there to outdrink all the annoying freshmen frat boys**

**Valkyrie Johnson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: That's the spirit!**

"Well, Nat's definitely going," Wanda says dully, and Vision drops a kiss on the top of her head as he sets her plate down in front of her, the familiar scent that takes her back to her childhood filling the apartment and making it feel even more like home. "Do you promise I don't have to see her the whole night if I don't want to?"

"I promise," Vision says, giving her a sincere smile that she can't help returning for a moment before her phone goes off again.

**From: Sam**

**I'm making extra jello shots just for you, so you better come to the party. I'll be your personal bodyguard against seeing She Who Shall Not Be Named the whole night if you want**

**To: Sam**

**I'll take you up on the jello shots, but I've got Vizh to be my bodyguard**

**From: Sam**

**You know I'm here if you ever need me**

**To: Sam**

**I'm still not going on that date with you**

**From: Sam**

**I'll get you one day, Maximoff**

**To: Sam**

**Dream on, Wilson**

**From: Darcy**

**Wanna come get ready at mine before the frat party? I can be your second opinion on whether you look hot enough to make Natasha furious that she broke up with someone so hot**

**To: Darcy**

**If that offers comes with tequila I'm in**

**From: Darcy**

**#turnup**

Silencing her phone to ignore any more messages from her friends, Wanda balances her plate carefully on her lap and curls up to Vision, rubbing her cheek into the soft knit of his sweater. "So I'm gonna get ready for this party at Darcy's, Sam's gonna give me extra jello shots and I'm gonna ignore Nat and have a good time," she says determinedly, and Vision grins at her. "But Clint has said he's gonna come pick me - and now you - up to drive to the farm the next day."

"Tell him not to bother himself, I'll drive," he says, and she beams at him. "If we're packed and ready to leave the night before, all we have to do in the morning is get you a shower and a coffee so your parents aren't horrified by you showing up obviously hungover."

"I got drunk  _with_  Clint and Laura last year," she says, and Vision chuckles. "You're definitely coming with me, then?"

"There's nothing I'd like more than not spending the holidays alone in this flat," he says, and she beams at him.

"This is gonna be the best Christmas ever," she says sweetly, and he brushes a kiss to her temple.

* * *

She's on her third glass of wine. Maybe fourth. Darcy got their usual, the cheapest rosé wine on the shelf redeemed by a pretty bottle and it's making everything a little funnier, a little fuzzier, and would be wonderful if it wasn't taking Wanda much too long to put her make-up on because of Darcy's running commentary, fuelled by Red Bull on top of wine on top of three shots of tequila. Bouncing on her bed, skirt flying as she sings along to the playlist she has blasting at the top of her voice, she glances down at Wanda and says, "I still think your eyes should be smokier. Gotta look sexy."

"I'm not interested in pulling with some random guy from the frat," Wanda says, leaning so close to the mirror her breath is fogging up the glass to attempt to get her eyeliner wing perfectly sharp.

"Honey, we all know that," Darcy says, half-stepping and half-falling off her bed, almost immediately regaining her balance like it's some kind of superpower. "But your ex is gonna be there. You gotta be looking like a hot piece to make her regret dumping you."

"Are you implying I don't usually look like a hot piece?" Wanda asks, teasing, and Darcy shoves at her, mercifully not causing her to mess up her eyeliner. "Okay, Jane's picking us up in...like, now. Are you ready?"

"Nearly," Darcy says, grabbing for the salt again and sprinkling it over her wrist, doing another tequila shot and chasing it with the last of the wine. "Now I'm ready."

"Okay, how do I look?" Wanda asks, capping her eyeliner pen and tucking it into the bag that she's leaving at Vision's when they pick him up, the last of her belongings to go to be packed up tomorrow before they leave.

"Hot as fuck," Darcy says bluntly, and Wanda giggles and grins wickedly at her friend. "Wanna make out later when I'm another few drinks in and ready to experiment?"

"You did that last year before you passed out after you let Thor talk you into doing a keg stand," Wanda points out, and Darcy gives her a wink.

"Guess I just can't get enough," she teases, and Wanda rolls her eyes expressively, straightening her skirt and wrapping her longest scarf around herself, shrugging into her coat as her phone buzzes with the message from Jane.

Clattering down the stairs in her heels, slightly unsteady on her feet after the requisite drinking while getting ready, Wanda somehow manages to catch Darcy when she stumbles on the edge of the sidewalk and nearly smacks face-first into Jane's car. Rolling her window down, Jane looks down at them with a slight quirk of amusement to the corner of her mouth and an attempt at a stern expression. "You're both already drunk."

"Wow, you're so observant!" Darcy says brightly. "That must come in handy when you're looking at the stars." Jane shakes her head fondly and Wanda jerks the door open against the ice, collapsing into the backseat while Darcy climbs into the passenger seat and turns up the music.

When Jane pulls up outside Vision's apartment, Wanda climbs out carefully, grabbing her bag and throwing a, "Be right back," over her shoulder. Cushioned from the cold by the alcohol, she darts around sparkling patches of ice to get to the door, taking the stairs as quickly as she can on heels and knocking on Vision's door.

He opens it with all his blonde hair and blue eyes and one of his more expensive sweaters, a cashmere that feels irresistibly soft beneath her fingers. "You look beautiful," he says, smiling sweetly down at her, and her chest feels tight for a second at the softness in his eyes.

She distracts herself by ducking past him to throw her bag onto the couch, already pulled out into a bed ready for her to collapse onto when they get back from the frat house. "C'mon, handsome," she says, grabbing for his hand and dragging him out after her. "We're already running late."

"How much have you already had to drink, Wanda?" he asks, all concerned and sweet, and she turns to beam at him.

"Four glasses of wine and two tequila shots," she answers brightly. "See, I know how many. That means I'm not drunk yet."

"I imagine Darcy is worse," he says, and she nods, gripping him a little tighter to stay steady on her feet rushing down the stairs. "Hey." The sudden quiet of his voice, makes her turn to look at him, teetering on the edge of the stairs. "Promise me you won't overdo it just because Natasha is going to be there?"

"I promise," she says, and he visibly relaxes. "I'm just letting loose, destressing, having fun. You know I never drink as much when we actually get to the parties."

He gives her a smile so sweet it steals her breath, and she tries to shake it off, sink back into giddy tipsiness and get back into Jane's car, join in with Darcy bellowing along to the music. But Vision sits so close to her in the car, his arm brushing against hers, and she can't help letting her head fall onto his shoulder, closing her eyes against the lights flashing past.

When Jane pulls up outside the frat house, the bass is already throbbing in the air and excitement moves with the cold breeze that whips up Wanda's legs, her tights providing no protection. Vision is next to her, arm around her, helping her avoid the glossy patches of black ice only visible by the slight shine on them from the obnoxious amounts of lights decorating every inch of the house.

"You're late!" comes Sam's voice the second they get to the door, and Wanda can only give him a shrug where he's sitting by the door, five into the twelve-pack of beer sitting next to him, assuming the business-like expression of the fraternity's events manager. "Coats in the first room to the right if you don't want to carry them around all night. Bedrooms are out of order as usual." The mask fades, and he gives them a crooked grin and says, "Unless you're desperate."

"Not desperate enough to sleep with you, Wilson," Darcy says, unwrapping her coat and adjusting her dress with a gleam in her eye, already scanning the room for prey. "Ooh, who's that?"

Following Darcy's pointing, Wanda catches sight of a boy in the centre of a group, looking around in slight bewilderment, dressed in a striped shirt and a cardigan. "New pledge," Sam says, and Darcy is grinning. "His name's Ian."

"Perfect," she says, and sashays away.

"Don't scare him off!" Sam bellows after her, and turns to Wanda, taking on a sympathetic mask that make sadness twinge in her chest. "How you holding up, Maximoff?"

"With distractions and alcohol," she says, and Sam barks out a laugh. "Is...is she here yet?"

"Somewhere with Thor, putting everyone else to shame with their alcohol tolerance," Sam says, then glances into the room. "Speaking of which, I better find Steve. He's on a four-drink maximum since Sharon brought her new girlfriend."

"Still cut up over that break-up, huh?" Wanda asks, and Sam rolls his eyes.

"They were never really even dating, I don't get it," he says. "I'll direct him downstairs to the beer pong tournament. You guys enjoy, mingle, drink and be merry! It's Christmas!"

Sam walks away, and Wanda grabs Vision by the hand and drags him into the depths of the party, where the lights are low and the music is loud and there are people everywhere, enough to make her forget. After a few drinks, Vision's usual shell of shyness peels away and they become one with the throng of dancers, and she can forget everything about Natasha swaying her hips to the beat and affectionately watching Vision bobbing his head.

Though it feels like only minutes, she glances down at her phone to see it's already almost midnight before she hears someone bellow, "Wanda!" and spins around to find Peter Quill grinning at her, yanking her into a hug, smelling strongly of weed.

"You not saving some for later, Quill?" she teases, and he grins at her.

"It's Christmas!" he says. "Fuck it! Everything in excess!" Shuffling a little on the balls of his feet, nervous, he asks, "You haven't seen Gamora anywhere, have you?"

"Oh for God's sake, Quill, stop following that girl around like a lovesick puppy," Wanda says, and Peter's face falls. "She likes you. We all know it. But you gotta let her realise it." Glancing around, she breathes out, "Oh shit," and ducks behind Vision as Carol pushes through the party-goes to the right. "Is she gone?"

"She's gone," Vision breathes, and Wanda pulls away from hiding behind him, running a hand through her hair. "I don't understand why you find it so difficult to face her. You broke up with her."

"Yes, and I also sent her a long text two weeks later saying I regretted it when she was already seeing someone new," Wanda says, and Peter lets out a series of high-pitched, hiccuping giggles. "At least tall blondes are easy to spot in crowds."

"You somehow missed me on your circuit of dating tall blondes," Peter says, pouting at her a little, and she shakes her head up at him.

"You've been head over heels for Gamora since orientation."

"Wouldn't have said no to a date," Peter says with a shrug.

"I don't want to spend two hours of my life listening to someone I'm on a date with talk about another girl," she says, giving him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder, and he slumps. "Go dance. I heard there's a beer pong tournament going on somewhere downstairs."

"Oh shit, where's Rocket?" Peter says, looking wildly around for one of his weird friends. "We're gonna mop the floor with everyone else."

Vision squeezes Wanda's hand suddenly, and she looks up to see Valkyrie waving at them from the corner of the room, sprawled out over the couches with a few other people, and she watches Peter stumble away before she follows Vision through the crowds to get to their friends. "I can't believe you talk to the campus weed dealer," Valkyrie says as Wanda climbs over her legs to sit down, tugging Vision down next to her.

"He's sweet!" she protests loudly, finding herself automatically curling up to Vision, accepting the glass of wine he hands her with a distinctly flirty smile. "He's really messed up over Gamora."

"That'll be because they slept together and didn't talk about it afterwards," Valkyrie says, and Wanda turns a wide-eyed look on her. "What? She was in the gym at the same time as me, we went out for breakfast afterwards and she ended up telling me because  _she's_  really messed up over  _him_  and doesn't know what to do."

"Stubborn idiots," Wanda says, rolling her eyes. "God, it must suck to be friends with two people who are clearly into each other and refuse to do anything about it."

"Yeah, I wonder what  _that's_  like," Valkyrie says pointedly, but before Wanda can decipher what the intensity in her voice means through the alcohol clouding her mind she's turning to Sharon sitting on the other couch, talking quietly to a brunette Wanda's never met before. "Sharon, you gonna introduce Wanda to your girl?"

"Right," Sharon says, and gives the woman next to her a besotted smile that makes Wanda's chest ache with a longing to have that for herself. "Wanda, this is Maria Hill. Maria, this is Wanda Maximoff and Vision."

"Strange name," Maria observes, and Wanda bristles protectively, putting an arm over Vision's chest, and he takes her hand and smooths his thumb soothingly over the back of her hand.

"It's a nickname," he says to Maria, and Wanda hears for the first time the slight slur in his words, wonders how much he's had to drink. "It's actually Victor Shade."

Maria wrinkles her nose in distaste and says, "It doesn't suit you."

"That's what  _I_  said!" Wanda exclaims, curling herself closer to Vision and smiling at him. "So he gets a special nickname. Because he's my best friend."

"Okay, no more wine for you," Valkyrie says, taking the bottle out of Wanda's hand without looking at her pout. "You want some water?"

"No," she says stubbornly, burrowing into Vision's side, his arm warm around her.

"I'm gonna get you some water," comes Valkyrie's voice again, and when Wanda looks up it's to her friend walking away, weaving through the drunken dancers to get to the kitchen.

Almost immediately, Sam takes her place, bearing a tray of luridly-coloured jello shots and his usual easy grin. "Shots, ladies?" he asks, and Wanda takes one immediately, downing it and then another. "I think Darcy is trying to eat that new pledge alive, by the way. Just passed them in the corridor."

"Another party, another Darcy conquest," Sharon observes, and Wanda giggles, realising that Vision is stroking her hair and has been for she doesn't know how long. It feels nice, his gentle fingers moving through her hair, lulling her into relaxation.  _He_  feels nice, solid and warm next to her, so comfortable to cuddle up to in the centre of the loud party.

She giggles when Vision takes a shot, wincing, and curls up to him. "You don't usually do shots," she observes, and he shrugs.

"I didn't get that internship," he says, and she makes a high-pitched noise of sympathy, patting his chest gently. "Might as well get a bit crazy tonight."

"That's the spirit!" Sam says, and hands Vision another shot glass, thudding the plastic gently together before they both down one each.

Valkyrie returns with Gamora at her side, sets a glass of water down on the table and says, "I'm taking this one downstairs for beer pong, we're gonna destroy all those men who think it's not a sport for ladies. Wanda, drink that."

"Don't wanna," she mumbles stubbornly, and feels the rumble of Vision's laugh in his chest before she hears it, beams when he kisses her forehead, lingering, and she can smell his familiar cologne and looks up into his eyes, brushing a hand through his hair to lift a few fallen strands out of his eyes.

"Can I have your water if you don't want it?" he asks, and she nods at him, distracted by the rise and fall of his chest beneath the arm she has carelessly thrown over him. Feeling that his chest is firm, muscular, wondering how she's missed that before now. Feeling a little flustered when she watches the motion of his throat as he swallows, noticing the sheen of sweat on his skin for the first time. "It's so hot in here."

"Then take your sweater off, silly!" she says, giving him an affectionate little poke in the side. "I know it doesn't go with your, like, sexy professor aesthetic, but you're going to boil if you keep it on."

Vision stares at her for a moment, something unreadable in his eyes, then reaches down and pulls his sweater over her head, and she tries not to show how obviously she sucks in a sharp intake of breath. It's like she's seeing him for the first time, though of course she's seen him in a pool, at the beach, she's shared a bed with him. But it seems like she never noticed how  _good_  he looks, thin T-shirt clinging to him in every place she wants to look and probably shouldn't look.

A shrill wolf-whistle breaks her out of her haze of staring, and she looks up to find Darcy walking past, the red lipstick she was wearing when they left her flat now smeared all over the dazed face of the man she's holding hands with. "Looking good, Vision!" she shouts over the music, and Vision blushes deep red, moving to put his sweater back on.

"Don't," Wanda hears herself say, reaching for his hands to still them. He turns to her wide-eyed, and she clears her throat and says, "You'll be much more comfortable like this. Darcy's just being herself."

"Is she telling the truth?" Vision asks, and Wanda blinks up at him. "Do...do I look good?"

"Like the sexiest professor ever," she says, and he ducks his head bashfully when she smiles at him. "Now c'mon, let's dance now you're a layer down and a few more drinks deep. Show them all how it's done."

"You're a much better dancer than me," he says, even as she stands up and pulls him with her, climbing over the assortment of empty bottles on the floor to get to the cluster of dancers, more pairs kissing and engaged in thinly-disguised foreplay now than actually dancing.

"You just need to loosen up," she says, letting the music fill her, the bass resounding in her chest, hips already moving to the beat. "C'mere." Taking his hands, her heart skipping a beat for some reason when his fingers intertwine with hers, she pulls him close and breathes, "Dance with me."

She turns around, sets his hands on her hips and starts to sway in time to the music, the sheer numbers of people around them forcing her to press herself back against him, his chest plastered against her back. In the low light, the music pulsing through her blood, he could be anyone, a body in a club to move against. But he's not just anyone. He's her best friend, her blue-eyed best friend, and her heartbeat is still speeding up, and her cheeks are flushing beneath her make-up, and when Vision grips her hips a little tighter and starts to match her dancing she can't swallow a soft gasp, hopefully disguised beneath the music, nor can she stop her eyes from fluttering, just for a moment.

Sliding her fingers between his, she pulls his arm tighter around her, bringing them closer together, and for a second he drops his chin onto her shoulder, and she feels his breath warm on her neck and can't suppress a shiver of excitement. "You're right," he whispers, and his voice sends sparks ricocheting down her spine. "I needed to loosen up."

"Well you've got it now," she whispers back, losing track of her words for a moment she's so caught up in the way his hips move with hers, perfectly in time. "You should dance with me at parties more often. Then everyone would look at you and see that you're the hottest guy in the room."

"Don't be silly," he says, and she turns around, keeping his hand in hers, and he goes still as she looks up into his eyes, steadying herself when her knees suddenly seem to turn to liquid by setting her hands on his chest, and almost without meaning to she traces her palms down his chest, slowly realising that she can feel every muscle through his shirt, heat creeping up the back of her neck.

"I'm not," she breathes, and their eyes meet and she can see that his are glassy with too much to drink, but his pupils are blown wide and dark with desire, and his hands on her back are set just a little too low, and she's overwhelmed by the intrusive thought that she  _wants_  him to slide his hands lower. Grab her ass. Pull her closer and dance with her like it's about to become sex, she wants to melt against him and feel his hips against hers. The thought doesn't leave her mind, persistent, imagining how it would feel to press against him. Urging her to do so.

Her arms slide around his neck seemingly without any signal from her, bringing them so close together, close enough that when she starts to dance it's impossible to do so without touching him, feel his arms tighten around her. "Wanda," he whispers, then nothing more, and she can't stop the desire for him that suddenly takes her over like a punch to the gut, a want that goes down to her bones. His gaze moves away from hers, eyes dropping to her lips, and instinct in her screams.

"Alright!" Sam's voice through a megaphone shatters the moment to pieces, and she reels backwards, away from Vision, gasping for breath that seems to have left her. "This is the half an hour warning for you all to get the hell out. Find your shoes, find your coats, find your friends."

She looks back to Vision, and finds that the desire isn't gone, still flickering like a flame in the pit of her stomach, and turns away from him only to be confronted by red hair. Natasha, looking at her like two months of kisses and sex and closeness never happened, like she's just another drunken idiot in the middle of a frat party. She doesn't even say anything. Just walks past, smiling at someone across the room, and Wanda's heart turns to lead to see Steve standing in the doorway, and Natasha walk up to him and kiss him full on the mouth. Her hand, black nail polish perfectly glossy, reaching up to trace the line of his jaw and cup his cheek. Steve smiling at her like the most besotted person in the world, wrapping his own coat around Natasha's smaller, shorter body, and putting an arm around her as they both disappear into the night.

"Wanda." Vision's voice breaks through the fog of misery wrapped around her, and she comes back to the noise, sees Sam and Sharon and Darcy all staring at the doorway too. Dodging around a group of people she doesn't recognise through the tears suddenly blurring her eyes, she grabs the half-full bottle of whiskey from Sam's slack grip and downs it all, relishing the burn in her throat, distracting her from thinking about Natasha and Steve. Kissing. Smiling at each other. A week after Natasha broke her heart. A  _week_.

"Wanda?" She turns her head to see Vision, eyes all concern and sympathy and familiarity, and she tries to ignore his worry, taking the wine bottle nestled next to Darcy and downing what's left, almost choking on the sickly-sweet fruitiness of it after the whiskey, still burning. Darcy's new conquest is staring at her, wide-eyed, and she can see Darcy's lipstick still on his face, that he's holding her hand and she's smiling at him like she's won the game, and her chest hurts she's trying so hard not to cry, her throat burning and her stomach twisting.

"Don't," comes Vision's voice when she makes to leave, thinking about where she might find enough alcohol to put her into oblivion, to forget the dead look in Natasha's eyes when their gazes met and the shine when she looked at Steve. "Wanda, don't. It's okay."

She opens her mouth to reply, to shout and scream and swear at him, scare him off the way she does with  _everyone_ , but her stomach lurches and she claps a hand over her mouth, running out of the room, shoving people out of the way, ignoring her friends shouting after her. So many people are paired up for the night, kissing in corners and against walls and sprawled out across the stairs, roaming hands and soft sighs, and she wants to scream, rip them apart and tell them that love never works, it only ends in broken hearts and dry sobs and worlds collapsing.

Outside is freezing cold and pitch black but for the soft multi-coloured glow of Christmas lights, and the second the cold air hits her lungs she's bent over throwing up into the grass, crying wretched sobs and shivering. She can't forget, she can only think about the bliss in Natasha's smile looking at Steve. No one's ever looked at her like that.

Arms around her, pulling her away from the mess she's made before she collapses off her shaking legs, turning her face into their shoulder. "It's okay," Vision repeats, and hearing his voice so soft and warm and sweet for her makes her crumple completely, clinging to him and sobbing into his shirt. He's stroking her hair, seemingly sobered up completely, holding her so tight, and kissing the top of her head over and over again. "Ssh, ssh, please don't cry, she's not worth it."

"I loved her," Wanda sobs into his shirt, and Vision holds her even tighter, warm in the cold night. "We were together for two months, it's barely been a  _week_. How can she be seeing someone new?"

"Maybe they were just going home together because of the party," Vision says soothingly, and she shakes her head.

"Did you see the way Steve looked at her? They've obviously liked each other for ages," she says, then is hit with a cold realisation. "Oh God, she dumped me so she could date Steve. She never really wanted to be with me. I was just a placeholder while she waited for a better offer."

"Then she's stupid," Vision says, rubbing her back in gentle circles. "I can't imagine any better offer than being with you."

"I don't feel good," she groans, and Vision turns her around so carefully, rubbing her back while she chokes and retches, tears rolling hot down her face. When she straightens up again, he's handing her a tissue to clean herself up a little, her eye make-up smudging black over the paper, and he's pressing a kiss to her sweat-slick forehead and holding her close. "I'm so sorry, Vizh, I'm  _sorry_ , I'm a mess."

"You're not," he says, gripping her hands tightly in his. "You're perfect. Natasha and Steve should both know better than to flaunt whatever is going on between them in front of you."

"Consider me officially not speaking to Steve  _or_  Nat," comes Darcy's voice, and Wanda blinks back tears of gratitude when she appears in the doorway, away from the noise of the party, holding out a pack of chewing gum and a glass of water. "That shit wasn't right."

"She didn't know I'd react like this," Wanda says weakly, and Vision grips her a little too tight for a moment.

"Don't defend her," he says, and he sounds so deeply angry, she's never heard it before. "She broke your heart and she has the audacity to parade a new relationship around a week later. You deserve so much better than her." Looking down at her, he softly says, "You're shaking," and peels his sweater over his head, pulling it gently down over her, covering up the dress she wore to try and look her best, to show Natasha that she made a mistake, to maybe win her back.

"I wanna go home," she mumbles, and Vision pulls her close, drops a kiss on the top of her head, and she clings to him. "Right now."

"My Uber with Ian is almost here, we can go past Vision's on the way," Darcy says. "Unless...he doesn't have to come with. I can get his number, organise another night. You come first, Wanda."

"Don't be silly, bring him with us, I'll be fine," Wanda says, more make-up smearing black across her fingers when she wipes her eyes like a child would.

"I'll look after her," Vision promises, and she looks up at him and gives him a weak, watery smile. The best person in her life. The only one who's always taken care of her.

Sam is waiting inside with her coat, Sharon hovering close by and Valkyrie standing with anger burning in her eyes. "I'm gonna kill someone," she says as soon as Wanda is within earshot. "I actually can't understand doing that to someone you're supposed to be friends with. I mean, who the  _fuck_  does Natasha think-"

"That's  _enough_ ," Vision says, forceful, grabbing his coat out of the cupboard and carefully helping Wanda into hers. "I'm taking Wanda home, and tomorrow we're leaving until the holidays are over. And there won't be any talking about this on the groupchat or in person until then. Do you all understand?"

"Yessir," Sharon says, giving a teasing salute. "Although I already took them both off the groupchat. Just for a while."

"Thank you," Wanda says, her voice so quiet and thick with emotion, and Sharon gives her a genuine smile.

"No problem, gorgeous," she says, and Wanda shakes her head at her friend.

"I know I look like a mess," she says, not daring to look at her reflection in her phone screen.

"You're beautiful," Vision says, and puts an arm tighter around her when Darcy gives them a thumbs up from the door. "Goodnight, everyone. Drink water before bed."

"Don't tell me what to do," comes Sam's tipsily disgruntled reply, almost enough to make Wanda laugh before Vision steers her out of the door, keeping them away from patches of ice until they get into the waiting car, Darcy jumping happily into the front and already starting to chat nineteen to the dozen with the driver.

Leaning her forehead against the cool window as the roads disappear behind them, Wanda can't help thinking about everything. Natasha ignoring her, but lighting up with Steve. The fact that her girlfriend never felt the same. And she was probably being used as a placeholder because she refused to let go after one drunken night of sex.

"She alright?" comes the gruff voice of the driver, glancing in the rearview mirror and apparently able to see the tears rolling down Wanda's cheeks, and Vision reaches for her, pulling gently on her shoulder until she shifts to lean against him, hiding her face in his shoulder.

"She's fine," he tells the driver, then a polite, "Left here and drop us off, please."

Wanda climbs out of the car in a daze, not protesting when Vision hands their share of the fare to Darcy and takes her hand to pull her towards his apartment, unlocking the door and climbing the stairs in silence. His apartment welcomes her in with familiar scent and the warmth, and she can't help starting to cry again.

"Please stop crying, Wanda, it breaks my heart seeing you so upset," Vision says sweetly, hands cupping her face and thumbs trying to brush away her tears faster than they fall. "It shouldn't be you feeling like this. It should be  _her_."

"Of course she's not upset," she says through her tears. "She didn't give a  _fuck_  about me. No one does. Everyone I love just  _leaves_."

"That's not true," Vision insists, and she whips her head up to look at him.

"Almost everyone I've ever dated ended up dumping me," she says. "My parents died. My brother died. I was meant to be alone."

"You have Clint and Laura, they love you," Vision says, soft and sweet and so compassionate, caring about her so obviously and completely and unabashedly that her eyes prickle with tears. "You have Cooper and Lila and Nathaniel. You have all of our other friends, Sam and Darcy and Sharon and Jane and Val and Thor and T'Challa. And you have me. I will  _never_  leave you, Wanda."

"How do you know that?" she whispers brokenly, and he kisses her temple.

"I never could," he says gently. "Not without having a hole in my heart no one else would ever be able to fill. You're my best friend."

"You're mine," she says softly, and he smiles at her, lighting up his eyes and her life in one simple gesture.

"Come on, we better get to sleep," he says, and she glances at her phone, horrified to see that it's nearly three o'clock in the morning.

She follows him into his room automatically, enveloped by warmth and the sea salt scent of the diffusers on his dresser, grabbing her spare pack of make-up wipes from his nightstand drawers and wincing at her reflection, swollen eyes and smeared lipstick and eyeliner trails all the way down her cheeks. Wiping it all away makes her feel a little more human, more like herself and not whoever it was that ruined a party by downing her friends' drinks, throwing up all over the garden and having a passionately sobbing breakdown.

Taking her pyjamas and a towel, she locks herself in the bathroom and takes a very quick shower, towelling herself dry roughly, trying to erase every mistake of the night that feels like it's etched on her skin. She almost expects to look down at her arms and see lurid tattoos of her dancing with Vision, too close, and her watching Natasha kiss Steve with such a blissful smile on her face, and her crying in the dark garden with Vision's arms around her.

Shutting the en-suite door with a soft click, hair dripping down her back, she catches Vision halfway through changing, neatly folding his shirt before slotting it into his laundry basket, and finds herself admiring the way the muscles in his back flex when he moves. His broad shoulders. Wondering how it's taken her so long to realise that her best friend is the sexiest man in every room he's ever been in.

"Vizh?" He looks up at her when she says his name, pulling his shirt down and giving her a sudden spike of disappointment in her chest. "I'm sorry I ruined your night."

"You didn't ruin anything," he says, and she can feel more tears rising in her throat. "All I want is to be here for you. Always." Looking back around the room, as neat as ever, he says, "I'll sleep on the couch. You're upset and you're sleeping in here."

"I can't take your bed, you're driving tomorrow!" she protests, throwing the towel aside with the sudden realisation that now she smells like him, his shampoo on her hair and his body wash on her skin. It's a little bit sexy, knowing they share that, and she has to shake herself before she says, "Just share with me if you're not letting me sleep on the couch."

"Are you sure?" he asks, all concern and nervousness, and she nods.

"Maybe I could do with being held and not alone tonight," she says, and in an instant she's beneath his blankets, his arm around her, head on his shoulder.

"You know you're going to do so much better than someone who does that to you," he says gently, and she curls into him. "You deserve to be so happy, Wanda. You deserve to be in love with someone who is perfect for you."

"When you find that person, tell me," she says, and he gives her a smile shadowed with sadness in the gloom. Turning onto her side, his warmth next to her lulling her to sleep despite everything, she murmurs, "Love you."

"I love you too," he whispers, and she falls asleep with his breathing rhythmic in the quiet, wondering why he sounds so sad.


	2. gonna find that girl underneath the mistletoe

**A/N:** Thank you so much for the feedback on the first chapter! Glad to know this shameless fluff isn't just indulging me!

Chapter title from _Merry Christmas Everyone_ by Shakin' Stevens

* * *

The moment she opens her eyes she's greeted by a pounding headache, even the dull pre-dawn light permeating Vision's bedroom too much for her absolute shocker of a hangover. Letting out a soft groan, she turns onto her side to look at Vision and finds him gone, his side of the bed still lingering with warmth and a note folded neatly on the pillow.

_Woke up at seven, finished packing my car up, thought I'd leave you to sleep it off a little longer. When you wake up there's coffee waiting and I need to use up the last of my eggs and bread. French toast? - V_

Smiling softly at her best friend's adorable dorkiness, Wanda reaches for her phone, plugged in to the charger - no doubt another of Vision's sweet, considerate actions - and starts scrolling through all the notifications she's gotten since she last looked at them.

**Sharon Carter removed Natasha Romanoff and Steve Rogers from Those idiots I talk to sometimes**

**Jane Foster to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: ...what did I miss?**

**Valkyrie Johnson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I'll text you**

**Sharon Carter to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Maria and I are both safely back at hers. Updates on everyone else's location?**

**Victor Shade to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I'm with Wanda back at mine. She's fine**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I found my bed. I love my bed**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: lmao I also found my bed**

**Sharon Carter to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Okay, now everyone go to sleep. We're all going to feel terrible in the morning**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Not me. I'm a superhero. Alcohol will not destroy me!**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I have ceased to live. Mourn me like a brother**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: What happened to 'alcohol will not destroy me!'**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Alcohol: 1, Sam: 0**

**Valkyrie Johnson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I feel fine!**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Smug bitch**

**Wanda Maximoff to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Hey guys**

**Wanda Maximoff to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I'm really sorry about last night**

**Wanda Maximoff to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I had too much to drink and I just lost it**

**Wanda Maximoff to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Thank you for being there**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: No prob, Maximoff! We're here for you!**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: We love you so much!**

**Valkyrie Johnson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: If you need any bitches hit call me**

Smiling softly at her phone, Wanda crawls out from beneath Vision's blankets, and automatically takes his sweater from where she left it in a pile on the floor, wriggling into a sports bra and pulling his sweater down over her leggings. Resigned to her hair looking like a mess, she runs a brush through it as best she can and tugs it back into a ponytail, wiping a piece of dried mascara away from the corner of her eye and trying to pin a smile onto her face.

When she opens the door she's greeted by the scent of breakfast, making her realise that she's hungry behind the dull ache of her head, and Vision turns from the stove to smile at her. Her eyes drop for a moment to his chest, hidden beneath his hoodie, remembering how his muscles felt beneath her hands, and she jerks her mind away from that. She was just drunk.

" _How_  are you not hungover?" she asks, getting herself a glass of water, feeling a flush creep into her cheeks when she brushes against him and cursing herself for being so ridiculous.

"I sobered up pretty quickly last night when you ran off," he says, and she winces at the memory of her breakdown, every second clear as crystal in her memory. "And I've had a few glasses of water, a shower and a coffee since I woke up."

"I feel like death," she says, and quickly adds, "I don't really remember a lot of last night." It's the coward's way out, sure, but she'd rather refuse to face the fact that she spent a chunk of the night grinding on her best friend. He can't know that she remembers exactly how it felt to be pressed up against him, her hands all over him, that she wanted to kiss him. Her drunken libido isn't going to ruin their friendship.

"It was a typical frat house party," Vision says, and she breathes a sigh of relief. He quite possibly doesn't remember. She can remember him having quite a few drinks too, and they have a similar alcohol tolerance. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she says automatically, and her heart lurches in her chest when she looks up to his familiar expression of gentle concern. "I'm heartbroken that someone I loved and someone I thought was my friend could do that to me. But I'll get over it. I still have everyone else on my side. I still have  _you_."

"I'll hit Rogers for you if you want," he says, and she lets out a small breath of a laugh, her heart skipping a beat when their eyes meet. Of all the times to develop a sudden weird crush on someone, it had to be at Christmas. And on her best friend. Who is spending Christmas with her. In close quarters. Looking handsome.

"You don't have to do that," she says, trying to cover up the thoughts of how gorgeous he is, but also very distracted by his newly-washed hair falling his eyes and the way the muscles in his arm flex when he gives the pan a shake to loosen the slices of toast. "I think Val would end her friendship with you if you punched him before she gets a chance to."

"See, you have all of our friends on your side," he says, and she smiles weakly. "Do you want golden syrup with this?"

"My hangover needs the sugar rush," she says, and he smiles once more, and she finds herself staring at his mouth. Despite the cold weather pressing patterns of frost into the apartment's windows, his lips still look so soft. Kissable.

Taking a long drink of water to calm the flush creeping up her neck, she forces herself to look away and get herself a mug of coffee, stirring sugar and creamer in so she doesn't have to look at him, sitting at the breakfast island with her back to him to calm her racing heart. But when he slides her plate of French toast in front of her he presses a soft kiss to her cheek, and she almost takes the chance and turns her head slightly so he gets her lips.

But she can't do that to him. Not when she's still broken up over her break-up, even if Natasha clearly isn't. Vision can't feel like he's just a rebound to her. She can't wreck the friendship that stopped her from dropping out, she can't lose the one person who's been there for her on every single bad night she's had since she started college. He's her everything.

"Everything's ready to go when you are," he says, distracting her from her meandering train of thought. "I left your toothbrush in the bathroom. Don't forget it."

"I won't," she says, and silence settles comfortably over them as they eat. But she's still fidgety, hyper-aware of him and how much she wants to touch him the way she did in the security of dancing under the influence. Remembering how much she wanted him to touch her in return. Her phone going off provides a welcome distraction, and she watches the conversation as she eats, just to avoid having to talk to Vision.

 **Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes:**   **[photo]**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Is...is that...do you have Starbucks? In bed?**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I have a bacon roll and a gingerbread latte. My hangover is pretty much gone!**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Who brought you Starbucks in bed?**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Turns out your new pledge is 1) a stellar hook-up and 2) very sweet and willing to take the bullet and go into Starbucks with a hangover so we can both feel better**

**Valkyrie Johnson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Guess who is currently sitting in McDonald's with Gamora for breakfast sandwiches (and gossip about her and Quill but I'm not supposed to tell anyone about that so sssh)**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Does anyone else not have a spectacularly beautiful breakfast?**

**Sharon Carter to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I have a breakfast burrito that my girlfriend helped me make for us and orange juice and am sitting on Maria's balcony to get some air**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Wanda Maximoff pls save me**

**Wanda Maximoff to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Vizh made us French toast and coffee**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Then I guess no one loves me**

**Jane Foster to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: JESUS CHRIST WILSON I AM MAKING THOR AND I PANCAKES RIGHT NOW DO YOU WANT TO STOP BEING A BABY AND COME GET SOME?**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Sssh no caps**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Too loud for my eyes**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: And yes Jane that would be very nice you are a very kind person and I love you very much!**

**Jane Foster to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I'm not bringing them to you in bed**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Then I'm coming downstairs in sunglasses**

**Sharon Carter to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Baby**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: LET ME LIVE**

"I love our friends," Wanda says out loud, and Vision gives her another smile that makes her stomach swoop.

"They're all here for you," he says, and she lowers her eyes, trying not to feel too sad. "Do you want me to make up a flask of coffee for the ride?"

"Please," she says, and he immediately stands to do so. "I'll show you where Clint and I usually stop for lunch on the drive back, there's this amazing tiny Italian place just off one of the roads."

"Sounds perfect," he says, and drops a kiss on the top of her head. "I'm not getting that jumper back, am I?"

"Nope," she says sunnily, snuggling further into the soft cashmere. "Mine now."

"One day I'm going to open my wardrobe to find a jumper to wear and I won't have any, because you've stolen all of them," he teases, and she just smiles at him, tilting her head in a gesture she quickly realises is flirtatious.

"They're comfy, and they smell like you, and I like wearing them," she says, then her mouth runs away from her mind and adds, "And they look good on me."

"That I can agree with," Vision says, then looks bashfully away from her, two spots of colour rising high on his cheeks. "I'm going to go check the car."

"Right," she says, trying to steady her heart rate from the compliment. It's ridiculous, he's called her beautiful a thousand times over the years they've been friends, but one agreement with her sending herself up is making her blush. She cannot have a crush on Vision. It's just lingering alcohol from the night before.

**From: Lila**

**Btw Cass and I are so gonna beat you and Vision to the farm**

**From: Lila**

**We've been on the road since five**

**From: Lila**

**Gonna be there in like two hours**

**To: Lila**

**We haven't left yet**

**From: Lila**

**GIRL WHAT ARE YOU DOING**

**To: Lila**

**Ssssh we were at a party last night**

**From: Lila**

**Why would you go party when you have to drive home the next day?**

**To: Lila**

**Because I'm an idiot**

**From: Lila**

**You can say that again**

**To: Lila**

**Rude**

**From: Lila**

**It's my brand don't take it away from me**

**To: Cooper**

**Hey you at the farm yet?**

**From: Cooper**

**Just getting a shitty drive-through coffee, be there in the next hour**

**To: Lila**

**Cooper's an hour away. Looks like you're not winning**

**From: Lila**

**DAMMIT**

Draining the last of her coffee and tucking her phone into the tiny bag that only holds her purse, keys and an almost empty pack of gum, Wanda grabs her coat from the hook and tucks it around herself, ready to brave the icy air. Vision, armed with his car keys and a flask of coffee for them to share, follows her down the stairs, waving politely to every single one of his neighbours outside their doors, and she can't believe how affectionately she looks at him. She would've thought that throwing up all over the frat house garden in a melodramatic fashion would get all the alcohol out of her system, but apparently not if she's still staring at the way Vision's coat fits to his shoulders and his waist and blushing because of it.

He turns on the heating as soon as she climbs into his car, knowing without her saying that she's cold, and throws his coat and hoodie into the backseat, letting her eyes stray to the way his shirt fits him, wishing he would unbutton it a little so she can stare while he's driving. Then mentally slapping herself for thinking that way about her friend. But continuing to do it.

New York flashes by as they leave the city, headed upstate and out of the busy traffic. She keeps her head down as the winter sunlight grows brighter outside, low enough in the sky to be shining directly into her eyes, and while waiting at a traffic light Vision reaches over her to open the glove compartment, making her blush when his hand brushes against her thigh, and sets a sunglasses case in her lap. "For the hangover," he says, glancing over to give her a small smile that she tries to return despite the internal argument with herself about the logistics of finding him so attractive all of a sudden.

The silence ruling over the car sets her on edge, so unusual for them. In three years of friendship, they're normally talking all the time, whether in person or over text, and suddenly she can't think of anything to say to him. If this is what her simply thinking she might have the tiniest crush on him does to their relationship, she can't stand to think what actually dating him would do. She's wrecked every relationship she's had, one way or another - she can't stand to lose him.

"Take this turn," she says, breaking almost an hour's worth of silence, and Vision swings his car around, pulling into the parking lot of the tiny, familiar restaurant. She hasn't been since going back to visit her family in March for her birthday, having stayed in Manhattan most of the summer working and not gone home for Thanksgiving, choosing to instead go to Darcy's apartment for a celebration with her friends.

She keeps her sunglasses on climbing out of the car and crossing the treacherously icy parking lot to the entrance, tucking them on top of her head as she scans the menu over the counter, deciding which of the many pasta dishes to choose. "Want to share a pizza?" Vision asks her, standing so close that her heart keeps skipping beats, and she can't move away from him without the fear of hurting him. Instead she nods, worried that if she speaks she'll somehow give away the turmoil in her head.

Only when they're sitting down does Vision move closer to her, reaching for her hand across the table, expression soft and sympathetic and so handsome she can't breathe, lost in how blue his eyes are. "Are you okay?" he asks, so concerned for her. "You've barely spoken all day. I worry about you, Wanda. A break-up has never hit you this hard before."

Grabbing for the excuse to fall back on, she shrugs and says, "I think it's just because Natasha was my friend before we got together. So I've lost a girlfriend  _and_  a friend. And I think I was in a relationship where I was the only one emotionally invested for two months. And she's immediately moved on to a friend I thought would at least wait longer than a week."

"What they did is...not unforgivable, but certainly worthy of the cold shoulder for a good while," Vision says, and she giggles quietly, and that makes him smile so brightly it outshines the sun. "I'm glad Sharon took them both off the group chat. They deserve each other."

"I've never heard you be so scathing about someone before," she observes as the waitress sets their pizza down in front of them, smiling broadly at Vision when he thanks her. "Normally you see the good in everything and everyone."

"I can't see the good in anything that hurts you," he says, and takes her hand tightly in his, her gaze dropping to their intertwined fingers. "You're the best thing in my life, Wanda. I can't stand seeing you sad over anything. Let alone over someone so inconsiderate of your feelings."

"Thank you," she whispers, tearing up yet again for whatever damn reason, and he squeezes her hand, and she misses the warmth of his skin when he lets go and turns to their pizza.

Lunch continues in companionable light chatter, nothing too deep, and she keeps losing herself in looking at him. And she probably can't blame the alcohol still now her headache has faded, but only her own want to gaze at him, drinking him in, realising what she's apparently missed for years now - that her best friend is gorgeous. All blonde hair falling in his eyes, and blue eyes that could probably make anyone do anything he asked, and muscles under his sweaters and hoodies and general aura of dressing like a professor. She catches herself thinking about him at the beach when they all went for Darcy's birthday in the summer, remembering him covering his too-pale skin in lotion and refusing to go in the water and falling asleep in the sunshine, her mind conjuring up the memories like they happened yesterday. She has to catch herself before she's caught staring at him, remembering exactly what he looks like under his shirt.

When they pay and get ready to leave, she bristles when their waitress winks at him and very obviously scrawls her number on their receipt, jealousy unfurling like fire in her chest. "Call me if you're local," she says, and Vision opens and closes his mouth a few time like a fish, blushing. "Or even if you're not. I'd travel pretty far for a date with someone as gorgeous as you."

"He's not interested," Wanda snaps, and snatches the receipt to shove into her pocket, standing up and taking Vision's hand to tug him out of the restaurant, anger roiling in her gut. Both at the waitress for hitting on Vision, and with herself for being so jealous over it. He's not her boyfriend, or anything close to romantically involved with her. He has the right to date anyone he wants.

"Thank you," Vision says when he regains the power of speech, and she whips her head around to look at him in surprise. "I didn't know how to say I didn't want her number."

"You didn't think she was cute?" Wanda asks, and Vision shakes his head. "Not your type?"

"Guess not," he says, and falls silent, starting the car engine and backing them out of the parking lot, back onto the road and towards the farm.

It's late afternoon by the time Wanda glimpses the familiar white house on the horizon, the sun dipping low in the sky and turning the clouds golden-orange, and she squeezes Vision's arm in excitement. "I can't wait for you to meet my family," she says, and he turns a smile to her, parking in the last space available outside, disturbing a few of the chickens heading to roost. "Three years is too long to be friends without you knowing them."

"I'm a little nervous, honestly," he says, and she leans into him, smiling up at him. "I've never known how to handle parents."

"Clint and Laura are angels, and you're so charming no parent could hate you," she says, and colour rises in his cheeks. "C'mon, let's go inside and say hi. We can unpack everything after Laura hugs me for an hour straight."

She waits while Vision wraps his hoodie and coat around himself once again, and he slips an arm around her as they walk up to the porch, pulling her against his warmth, and she can't keep resisting him, instead setting her head on his shoulder once she's knocked three times and is waiting for someone to open the door. Hearing footsteps, she readies her brightest smile, but it spreads across her face genuinely when Nathaniel opens the door, her youngest brother grinning when he sees her.

"Munchkin!" she exclaims, and envelopes him in a hug, ignoring his struggling.

"'M not a munchkin!" he protests, wriggling out of her grasp. "I'm nearly taller than you now!"

"You'll always be my munchkin," she says, pinching his cheek just to annoy him and giggling when he glares at her. "Can I come in, munchkin?"

"Are you gonna stop calling me munchkin?" he asks sulkily, and she gives him an angelic smile and shakes her head. "Then no entry."

"Nate!" Wanda grins even brighter hearing Laura's voice, and Nathaniel starts guiltily. "Let Wanda in, it's freezing outside!"

Nathaniel takes off back into the front room, and Wanda closes the door behind her and Vision, toeing her boots off and kicking them under the coat hooks with the rest of the shoes. "Wanda, wait," Vision breathes, and he sounds so scared that she turns to look at him, seeing his gaze darting wildly between the door into the front room and her face. "I don't think I can do this."

"Vizh, it's just my family," she says, and he blanches. "Look, you're with me, okay? I'm here." She takes his hand, ignoring the pang of desire that runs through her, and cups a hand to his cheek to force him to look into her eyes. "You don't need to worry. I love you, and they'll love you too."

A moment of silence, then he squeezes her hand in return and gives her his sweetest smile. "Okay," he says, and she smiles at him. "I'm okay."

The moment she opens the door, Laura is on her feet, and Wanda nearly starts crying when her adopted mother hugs her tightly, burying her face in Laura's shoulder and clinging to her. "Look at you, sweetheart, you look so tired," she says, brushing a stray lock of hair behind Wanda's ear and inspecting her face closely. "Are you sleeping properly? Do you want to go and see Doctor Cartwright for some more of those pills before you go back?"

"Wanda went out partying last night!" Lila pipes up, and Wanda rounds on her sister, prepared to shout at her for giving away the secret, but stops when she sees that Lila's formerly light brown hair has turned to a deep blue.

"You dyed your hair!" she exclaims, and Lila nods, grinning wickedly. "Look at you, you've gone all California!"

"That's nothing," Lila says, and takes Cassie's hand, beaming at her girlfriend. "Cassie got a tattoo!"

"Dad went crazy," Cassie says smugly, and Lila giggles. "So did Mom. Hope and Paxton thought it was cool."

"I hope it was a good party if you went out the night before driving back," Laura observes, and Wanda bites her lip, knowing she can't tell the truth. "Was it?"

"It was," Vision says, covering for her, and she shoots him a grateful smile. "Lucky for us that we're friends with the events manager of the campus' biggest fraternity and can go to all their parties."

"You didn't plan to do anything tonight, did you?" Wanda asks. "I'm just really tired, Laura, I'm sorry. I want to go to bed."

"She insisted on putting fresh sheets on your bed," Clint says from the couch, giving Wanda the familiar grin, and Laura gives a shrug.

"Can't have your boyfriend sleeping in unwashed sheets the first time he visits!" she chirps, and Wanda wants to protest immediately. Same as she has for years every time someone assumes her and Vision are a couple. Same as she did when they met half of their friends. But she can't help thinking about them grinding in the low lighting last night, how badly she wanted to kiss him even if it was just for a moment, that she slept curled up to him in a shared bed and he made her breakfast and she got jealous over a waitress flirting with him.

"I...he's...we..." She's blushing deeply, embarrassment tying her tongue, and Laura is gazing at her expectantly.

"Darling, don't you think it's time we told your family about us?" Vision's voice makes her start, and her blush deepens when he wraps an arm around her, her mind sticking on him calling her darling, focusing on the way he's looking down at her. Besotted. Like he's crazy about her. Then he looks up at Laura, turning on the charm that he usually seems to reserve for Wanda alone, and says, "I'm so sorry, obviously we think we're more subtle than we actually are. Wanda and I had discussed not telling you. We've only been together for two months, it's still very new, we're getting used to making that transition from just friends to something more."

"Oh, of course, I remember those days well," Laura says, giving Clint a sweet smile across the room. "But I could tell that Wanda liked you every time she talked about you, especially these last few months. Seems like you two are always together!"

"Our friends often suggest it would be simpler if we just lived together," Vision says with a slight chuckle, and he's not lying. People might be teasing, but they have been known to say that, given the number of times Wanda has ended up falling asleep at Vision's while talking late into the night and had to borrow clothes to wear to lectures. That's the reason she's appropriated a good third of his collection of sweaters. Vision brushes a kiss to the top of her head, squeezing her into his side, and says, "I'm going to get our bags out of the car, darling."

She watches him walk out of the door, her gaze glued to him, taking in every inch, and she doesn't look back until Lila lets out a low whistle. "You snagged a good one," she says, and Wanda's blush grows hotter on her face. "That's a nice ass."

" _Lila_!" Laura and Clint both exclaim at the same time, shooting glares at their younger daughter, and Lila shrugs and gives Wanda a wink.

Clint goes silent, expression changing from the smile of a father happy to have his family back to brooding, but Laura gives Wanda a smile. "Your sister's being crude, but he  _is_  very handsome, sweetheart. And he looks like he's completely besotted with you."

"It's early days," Wanda mumbles, playing along with the lie, and Laura laughs softly.

"Every time I've spoken to you for your entire time at that college you've mentioned his name," Laura says, and Wanda flushes up again realising that it's true. "I'm just glad you two have finally decided to make it official."

"Wanda?" She turns around, trying to calm her blush, and finds Vision waiting in the hallway, each of their bags swung over his shoulders. "Will you show me where your room is and help me unpack?"

"Right," she says hastily, and hastens to leave the room, hoping that if she gets away from her family she might stop blushing.

"Use protection!" Nathaniel bellows after them, and now Vision is blushing too, and she's thinking about all the implications of her brother's teasing. Her mind straying unbidden to places she's avoided for so long. Thinking about being pressed skin to skin with Vision, kissing him, letting her hands wander all over his body, hearing his heavy breathing. Hearing him whisper her name.

"Nathaniel Pietro Barton!" Clint's shout distracts Wanda from that particular train of thought, and she takes the smaller of the bags from Vision and darts up the stairs.

But not fast enough to avoid hearing Lila wickedly adding, "Keep it down up there!"

"Lila Elizabeth Barton!"

Slamming her bedroom door closed against her family's shouting, Wanda lets out a long groan of embarrassment and slings the bag onto her bed, collapsing face-down onto the familiarly soft mattress. "I'm sorry." She turns over to look at Vision, awkwardly shuffling foot to foot, avoiding her gaze. "You just seemed so flustered, I wanted to step in. I shouldn't have implied that we're dating."

"No, it's...it's really alright," she says, and he meets her eyes, jaw a little slack in shock. "We might as well ride it out."

" _Really_?!" he asks, voice high-pitched with surprise, and she smiles affectionately at him.

"Why not?" she says, and pats the bed next to her for him to sit down, tucking her chin over his shoulder in a position they've sat in a thousand times before. "Either I spend the entire holiday watching Lila and Cassie and wishing I had that, miserable, and ultimately end up having to tell Clint and Laura I got unceremoniously dumped right before Christmas, or I pretend to be dating you for a few weeks. I mean, it wouldn't be that different to how we usually are. Just switch on the nicknames and we can go ahead." She looks up at him, unconsciously batting her eyelashes at him and says, "If you don't mind."

"No, it's...it's fine," he says, and she gives him a soft smile. "So we just...pretend? For three weeks?"

"Clint and Laura won't take much convincing," she says, trying to convince herself as much as she is him. "They want me to be happy in relationship. I told them about most of the break-ups. All they want is to see me with someone who is good to me." Taking his hand, she softly says, "And that's you."

"So is it alright if I call you darling?" he asks, and she nods eagerly.

"I love it as a nickname," she says, and he ducks his head bashfully. "I'll probably just call you Vizh as usual. Maybe babe."

"I like babe," he says, very quiet and shy, and she has to fight not to blush.

"Wanda!" Cooper bellowing up the stairs sends her reeling away from him, glancing at the door to avoid continuing to look into his eyes before she does something stupid like lean in. "Mom made lasagne and she says you have to come down and eat something before you fall asleep!"

"Coming!" she shouts back, and tugs at Vision's sweater as she stands, pulling it down around her and holding a hand out to him. "C'mon,  _babe_. Let's go be an obnoxious new couple. I know I'm good at that."

"But I don't," Vision says, and she smiles at him, yanking him to his feet and leaning in close, so close that her heart starts pounding, helpfully informing her they're within kissing distance.

"Just follow my lead, babe," she says, the nickname feeling so natural on her lips, and she can't help adoring the way he grins a little giddily when she says it.

They walk down the stairs holding hands, and it feels so easy, so little change from the way they normally behave. It's just how they act, affectionate with each other, especially with Vision being so shy about showing affection to most people. He only does so when he's sure of himself. And it means a lot that that he's sure of her.

Pushing through the archway into the kitchen, she pauses when she sees Laura smirking at her. "House rules, Wanda," she says, teasing, and Wanda reluctantly looks up to see a sprig of mistletoe pinned over the arch, the one piece of decoration in the entire house. "C'mon, you have to kiss!"

"Leave the kid alone, Laura," Clint says, shaking his head fondly at his wife, and Wanda pulls Vision closer, so aware of her entire family watching them.

"You don't have to," she whispers to Vision, and her breath seems to stop entirely when she meets his eyes, the way he's looking at her holding so much indecipherable meaning behind it.

"I want to," he breathes, and that makes her heart beat so fast it actually hurts, and her eyes fall closed as he starts to lean in, one hand cupping her cheek and the other curving over her waist, drawing her closer.

His lips on hers are as soft as she imagined them to be, and warm. After a moment of just feeling, she starts to kiss him back, gentle and tentative and trying so hard not to upset the balance of their friendship, and he grips her waist a little tighter, pulling her closer. She presses herself against him, his solid warmth, and parts her lips against his, wrapping her arms around his neck, fingers sliding into his hair. He keeps kissing her back, matching her intensity with a flicker of his tongue against her lower lip, making her gasp and tug on his hair, trying to bring their mouths closer together.

"Okay, you've made your point!" Clint says loudly, ruining the moment, and Wanda pulls hastily away from Vision, heat creeping up the back of her neck, and stares at his lips for a moment before she can drag her gaze away. Now she knows how his mouth feels on hers, all she wants is another kiss. To memorise how it feels.

He smiles shyly at her, and her heart skips a beat. As if grinding on him at a party wasn't enough, she's now kissing him under the mistletoe in front of her family, and wanting to lean in and do it all over again. And having her heart flutter every time he moves. And thinking about how he looks under his clothes. And blushing at the thought of sharing a bed with him for the next few weeks.

It's definitely official. She has a crush on her best friend. And she could  _not_ have picked a worse time to realise that.

* * *

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: SOS my mom will be here to pick me up in two hours and I'm barely packed at all**

**Jane Foster to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: You're a human disaster**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I know I know, now bring your organised mind and your muscular boyfriend over here and help me!**

**Jane Foster to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Why is my muscular boyfriend necessary?**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Duh, we need eye candy!**

Setting her phone down when Vision stirs next to her, Wanda turns over to meet his sleep-veiled eyes, admiring him in the pale grey winter light filtering through her curtains, hair mussed by the pillows and threadbare T-shirt creased. Relaxed, rumpled, everything only she ever really gets to see. "Hey," she breathes, and his face splits into a slow smile that makes her whole world shake. Still reckless with the early morning, able to blame any impulsiveness on not quite being awake yet, she traces the tip of a finger down his cheek and whispers, "You're cute first thing in the morning."

"Your bed is so comfortable," he says, and she forces away the disappointment that he didn't acknowledge the compliment. Or give her one in return. Instead she watches him sit up, the duvet falling down around his hips, her eyes drawn away from his face, seeing if his muscles are noticeable through his T-shirt. She's only drawn away from her staring when he clears his throat and says, "So, this is your childhood bedroom?"

"Pretty much," she says, straightening herself up and smoothing out her shirt, wondering if Vision is sneaking a glance at her the same way she keeps sneaking glances at him. But no, he's standing up and out of bed, making her feel almost immediately colder, and looking at the collection of photographs she has on her dresser. "I got the biggest room. Cooper and Lila were both too young to kick up much of a fuss when Clint and Laura first adopted me."

"This is your family?" he asks, so gentle, and picks up the silver frame that takes pride of place. A lump forms in Wanda's throat, bringing stinging tears to her eyes, and she knows exactly what the picture looks like even across the room. Her parents smiling into each other's eyes, the dictionary definition of a couple madly in love. Pietro and her, matching dark hair and gap-toothed grins, looking up at the camera with the bright, innocent eyes of children whose parents fought tooth and nail to keep the storm of the civil war away from them. "When was this taken?"

"December 2000, for my parents' wedding anniversary," she says, and Vision gives her a look of such gentle sympathy that a tear spills over before she can stop it. "They were killed in February 2001. Apparently when the rescue team found me I was clutching that photo." Her hand automatically rises to brush against her mother's wedding ring, hanging on its chain around her neck, never taken off since the terrible day when she awoke in a hospital bed to be told her family were all dead, buried in the rubble of their destroyed apartment building.

Vision sets the photograph down so carefully, and sits down next to her, putting his arm around her and kissing her forehead. "You still miss them," he whispers.

"I can't remember their voices," she confesses, so quietly. "I tried to hold on to those sounds for years, but they just faded. All I have left of them is that photograph and few hazy memories."

"They loved you," he says, and guilt for making him say so takes a cloyingly hot grip of her heart as she pulls herself out of her own melancholy and sees the sadness in his eyes.

"Whoever your parents were, they made a mistake," she says, and he looks away from her, and she cups her hand over his knee and squeezes reassuringly. "They missed out on the chance to have someone as wonderful as you for a son."

"What a pair we make," he says, and she lets out a soft breath of a laugh. "An orphan of war and someone who grew up in the foster system after being abandoned."

"We found each other," she says, hooking her chin over his shoulder and curling into him as his arm goes around her. "That's what's important. No matter how tragic our pasts are, now we have each other."

Vision kisses her temple, and they stay in the same position for a long moment of suspended silence. Slowly, her thoughts turn from her family to him, his skin warm through the thin fabric of his pyjamas, his thigh firm against hers, his breath warm against her neck. Her heart starting to flutter in her chest with their proximity, and him holding her for so long without protest. An urge to kiss him rises at the back of her mind, making itself loudly known, and she lifts her head from his shoulder and looks into his eyes, searching for any spark that might mean he wants to kiss her as badly as she does him.

Pounding on her door startles her away from him, and she stands up and jerks the door open to find Lila standing outside, hair pulled into a messy topknot and already dressed in a ridiculous festive sweater, emblazoned with a sequined Christmas tree. "I'm never gonna forgive you for stealing me and Cassie's thunder as the couple at Christmas, by the way," she says, and Wanda rolls her eyes.

"You've been together for three years, you went to UCLA so you could be with her, Vizh and I are  _not_  stealing your thunder," she says, and feels a blush rise in her cheeks thinking about her and Vision as a couple. Not that it's real. Just a lie. "Did you come knocking on my door just to tell me that?"

"Dad's making waffles, and he demands that all of his children come and eat together on the first morning with the whole family together," Lila says, then casts her gaze behind Wanda and smirks. "Better get dressed first though. Don't want him having a heart attack."

Shutting the door in her sister's laughing face, Wanda turns around and sags back against the door, the weight of being home both comforting and a little strange. She's not used to keeping secrets from her family, not since the night when she finally cracked open and allowed herself to be loved by Clint and Laura, letting go of the family that weren't coming back and finding the place that was waiting for her all along. "She seems sweet," Vision says, breaking her out of her reverie, and she looks up to him already searching through their unpacked bags for something to wear.

"She's a nightmare," she says, and he grins. "But yes, sweet. A little obsessed with mine and Coop's love lives, though."

Vision doesn't say anything to that, instead dodging into her en-suite with a bundle of clothes in his hands, and she turns to her reflection in the mirror over her dresser, letting her hair out of its braid and running her fingers through the loose waves. The closest clothes to the top of her bag are the ones she chooses, laying out her worn, well-loved black dress and a thick cardigan to stave off the draughts that run through the old farmhouse, despite Clint's constant work fixing the place up. She forces herself not to think about Vision as she changes, not ten feet away from her. Not to think about his muscles under his clothes. Not to give in to her mind pushing desire upon her.

Not that it stops her breath from catching when he closes the bathroom door behind him, setting his neatly-folded pyjamas on the end of her bed, her gaze dropping to admire him. Legs so long in his jeans, and when he stretches the hem of his sweater rises a little, just enough to catch a glimpse of skin that she stares at for a long moment of silence, taut with tension. The scent of his cologne is strong, freshly-sprayed, but she likes it. It's familiar, a scent that's been on her many times before when she's borrowed his clothes or needed to spray something to cover up the scent of stale alcohol and mistakes for early classes the morning after parties.

She automatically reaches for his hand, smiles up at him, and he smiles back, free hand tugging her rolled-up sleeves down. "You're all goosebumps," he says, and she glances down at her arms, wondering if it's from the cold or from excitement at their closeness.

"I need my tea, and you need your coffee," she says softly, and tugs him out of her room, down the stairs and plunging into the main body of the house, outside of the quiet oasis of her bedroom.

Nathaniel is draped over the couch, wearing tartan slippers of all things, lazily flicking through the available channels. Cooper is tucked into the corner, always the quiet one, reading some ridiculously large, unwieldy textbook. And across the counters into the kitchen is Lila, perched on the counter with her arms wound around Cassie's neck where the other girl is leaning back against her legs, talking loud and fast and hardly pausing to take sips of her coffee. "...and there's this guy who lives in the room next to mine, and he has this ridiculously good fake ID and he's always using it to buy enough booze for the whole floor, God knows where he gets the money, but there was this Halloween party and it was  _crazy_ , like, seriously, no one moved until almost one the next day, and me and Cass got together with a few of the other girls and ordered pizza and made friends. And we went on this bowling night with the LGBT+ society, and we whipped everyone's asses, didn't we babe?"

"We are the bowling queens of UCLA," Cassie says, and Lila grins into her girlfriend's shoulder, sending a pang through Wanda's heart. It's a relationship born from initial friendship, ever since Clint met Cassie's father, years of closeness and inside jokes and obvious intimacy, and it puts a dull ache in Wanda's chest that she's never had that. Her longest relationship lasted four months, and ended with her abandoned in the Brooklyn streets after being swiftly broken up with, crying into Vision's shoulder when he came to pick her up, his beat-up car parked down a side street as dawn turned the sky a pale grey and he kept comforting her, quiet words of reassurance and gentle hands smoothing over her shoulders and her back until her tears dried.

The Vision of the present hovers behind her, and she untangles their fingers with a spike of sadness when the warmth of his skin leaves hers, balancing on her tiptoes to reach to the highest shelf for two mugs, hitting the switch on the kettle. "You not had Lila talk your ear off yet, Clint?" she asks, and he turns to her with a weary expression, not covering up a pantomime yawn. "Look what you're doing to him, Lila!"

"Screw off, you're just jealous I had a more fun semester than you," Lila says, and Wanda rolls her eyes, dumping a tea bag and a few spoonfuls of sugar into her mug. "Bet you were stuck studying on Halloween."

"On the contrary, I went out with my friends to the nearest club, because I'm actually old enough to get into them," she says, and Lila sticks her tongue out at her, and Wanda gives her younger sister the smirk of the superior eldest sibling. "It was a great night. It was the night I got together with..." She stops talking immediately when the memory hits, the club lights shining on Natasha's blonde wig, the two of them kissing in one of the shadowy corners while a ridiculously drunk but somehow still coherent Darcy cheered them on, disappearing from the group to go back to Natasha's apartment, waking up the next morning with red hair spilling over the pillow against her own dark waves, and ditching class to go out for brunch and decide to officially get together.

"Me." Vision's arm wraps around her, pulling her back against him, and with his other hand he laces their fingers together. "We got together on Halloween."

"In a club?" Cassie asks, wrinkling her nose. "Doesn't seem very romantic."

"We can't all meet our soulmate at thirteen and spend two years falling in love," Wanda retorts, and Cassie smiles smugly, craning her head back to kiss Lila's cheek. "But yes, Vizh and I got together on Halloween. A bunch of us decided to go as DC characters, and Vizh won the name draw to go as Batman. I was Catwoman."

"Sam was so mad that he had to be Superman, he thinks that's the most boring superhero," Vision says, and Wanda giggles remembering Sam pouting all the way through drinking from dinner to club opening hours in his apartment, commenting over and over again on how blue and red weren't his colours. "But we ended up going outside for some air, didn't we? At around two o'clock."

"I remember," she says, and looks up to find him looking down at her like he's besotted again. It makes her chest hurt with the way she wants it to be real. Thinking about how different the end of her semester might have turned out if it had been Vision she'd gotten together with on Halloween instead of Natasha. "Everything got a bit much for a minute, and you came with me to sit in the smoking area for a while, but it was empty. Everyone was busy trying to find someone to go home with."

"That's always the worst part of the night," Lila puts in, only to be shushed by Cassie, her eyes wide with wonder as she listens to the lie, the long-winded story of how Wanda didn't get together with Vision.

"And it was so cold outside, you took off that stupid cape and wrapped it around me like a blanket," she continues, barely aware of the interruption, losing herself in Vision's eyes and the depth behind the way he's looking at her. "And when the door swung shut we couldn't hear the music anymore, and there were no cars passing, and it felt like we were the whole world. You took off that mask, and it was like I saw you for the first time."

Vision smiles down at her, tucks her hair behind her ear, never taking his eyes off her, and says, "I couldn't even speak, you looked so beautiful. I just had to...I  _had_  to kiss you." He leans in, and she accepts the kiss she's been aching for all morning, their fingers tangled together, his mouth soft against hers, filling the hollow in her chest where she supposes her heart is.

Cassie letting out a squeal of, " _Awww_!" has her remembering that they're not alone, and she breaks the kiss, finding Vision gazing back when she opens her eyes, smiling at her like she's the only person who exists for him.

"So you got together with this boy drunk outside a club?" Clint asks, voice all cynicism, and when Wanda pulls her gaze away from Vision her adopted father is staring at them with an eyebrow raised and the beginnings of a glare in the set of his mouth.

"No, of course not!" she protests, and leans against Vision, his arm going around her like it's a practiced gesture. Like they're really together. "We kissed outside the club, then we went to get our coats and we went to McDonalds and I wore your cape all the way there, didn't I, babe?" The nickname already feels natural on her lips, hurting her because it's not real. "And we got a full meal and ice cream and sat there talking about how we felt, and we wound up at yours, just sitting on the couch, until I fell asleep on your shoulder."

"And when we woke up I asked if you remembered everything," Vision says, and the way they've told the story feels like a perfect waltz, every step together, like they're not lying. "And you said you did, and you asked if I wanted this thing between us to be real. And, of course, I said yes."

"We've been together ever since," she finishes for them both, voice so soft that perhaps he's the only one who hears her, and leans in to kiss him again. If she only has three weeks to indulge her crush on him, before they go back to Manhattan and reality and she forces herself to forget it, she'll kiss him as many times as she wants. See if it's enough to memorise the way his lips feel against hers, and the way his fingers tighten around hers when she opens her mouth against his.

"Well what have I walked it on here?!" Laura's exclamation makes Vision stop the kiss, leaving Wanda disappointed that it didn't grow more heated, and she looks up to see him blushing, Laura grinning at them as she unwinds her scarf and accepts the cup of coffee Clint hands her, the two of them exchanging a besotted smile.

"Wanda was telling us how her and Vision got together!" Lila says, and gives Wanda an angelic smile before cheerfully adding, "She was drunk!"

"Lila, honey, not that you'd know this because you're too young to drink," Laura says, giving her youngest daughter a pointed look that makes Wanda smirk when Lila drops her gaze in shame, "but sometimes just a drink or two can give us the courage to say something we've been keeping in for a long time. Your father told me he wanted to marry me when we'd both been drinking."

"I did not!" Clint protests loudly, and Laura shakes her head at him and leans across to kiss his cheek.

"You did, darling, I remember it well," she says, and Wanda giggles to see Clint look so uncomfortable. "It was your third beer in two hours, and you turned to me and said that every time you went out of town for work you missed me more, and you were going to ask Nick to stop sending you on so many international assignments and for a pay raise so you could buy me a ring beautiful enough for me." She spins her engagement ring around her finger with a sweet smile, and Vision's arm slides around Wanda, her head falling onto his shoulder out of habit as she watches her adopted parents looking so in love.

"Your mother is right, Lila," Vision says, and Wanda gives Lila's disgruntled expression a smug smile. "Sometimes a drink prompts you to say something you haven't yet been brave enough to say. Like admitting your feelings for someone that you've been keeping secret for months." He kisses her cheek, and she wants to both smile at his sweetness and cry because it's not real. Cursing herself for choosing such an inconvenient time to realise her feelings for her best friend.

And everything he does just seems to play directly into making her sink deeper into her crush. Pressing her mug of tea earnestly into her hand, fingers brushing against hers for just a moment too long. Tucking her into his side when they curl up on the couch to eat Clint's painstakingly cooked breakfast, and squeezing exactly the right amount of syrup onto her waffles. Peeling away some of his shyness to talk earnestly with Nathaniel about computers and advances in robotics, and she's a goner seeing him get along with her family.

He's perfect. Her best friend, the shy, anxious boy she found hidden in a book in a dingy student accommodation corridor three weeks into her first semester of college and dying inside with loneliness, who shook his head at her offer of Malibu but started talking to her and hasn't stopped since. She's put all her trust in him, he's listened to every moment of emotional turmoil, played with her hair to calm her down and soothed her nightmares away with long-winded explanations of his studies. And the longer she gazes at him, the more she starts to think that maybe this is more than just some little crush encouraged by alcohol.


	3. don't make me fall in love again

**A/N:** Chapter title from  _Santa Tell Me_ by Ariana Grande

* * *

Snatching her mug out of the way of Nathaniel clattering a heavy box of decorations down onto the table, Wanda glares at her youngest sibling, cradling her mug protectively against her chest. "Nathaniel, be careful!" comes Laura's shout. "Some of those ornaments are older than you!"

Crouched in the corner of the room, Lila grins when the speakers start blasting out music, Cassie rolling her eyes but still looking so fondly on her girlfriend as Lila zigzags across the room singing along to the familiar opening lines, concluding with a ridiculous falsetto, " _All I want for Christmas is you_!" and kissing Cassie's cheek. Wanda watches them wistfully, and fights not to glance at Vision, helping Cooper untangle strings of lights and tinsel.

"Why do you always choose the cheesy love songs?" Cooper grumbles, glaring at the strings of bell-shaped lights he's untangling, apparently only succeeding in twisting them around his hands and getting himself stuck.

"Because I'm a sap, and I'm in love, and it's Christmas!" Lila says cheerfully, winking at him across the room.

"Okay, that's the last box," Nathaniel says, setting it down a little lighter on the table, and Wanda uncurls her feet from beneath her as Clint finishes propping their latest tree up in the corner of the room, giving his handiwork a proud glance.

"Wanda?" She tries to ignore the way her stomach swoops when Vision says her name, instead draining what's left of her tea and giving him a smile that she hopes will convince her family she has feelings for him while convincing him of the opposite. "Could you come help me with this last piece?"

Weaving around the boxes of decorations, stepping over the unfurled rows of lights that Cooper has been working with since breakfast, she finds Vision with coils of multi-coloured tinsel around him, smiling at him softly. "Hold that," he says, handing her the end of a red piece, and she gazes up at him as he winds the tinsel around her waist, unable to help the softness in her eyes. Admiring the line of his jaw, his neck for once not hidden behind a collar but beckoning her to press her lips to his skin, see how he would respond to a kiss.

"Vizh?" she asks softly, and he meets her eyes, slowing in his handiwork. "What exactly is the point of wrapping this around me?"

"Because," he answers, eyes shining mischievously down at her, and tugs on the end of the tinsel to bring her closer, and her breath catches when their bodies collide, and he tucks her hair behind her ear and smiles, "then I can do this." She falls into the kiss, a blissful smile pulling at the corners of her mouth when his arm wraps around her, losing herself in the sweet softness of his lips.

"Okay, c'mon, enough," Clint says, breaking her out of her trance and reminding her that it's not real. That Vision is only flirting with her and pulling her close and kissing her because her family are surrounding them. Alone, he's been a perfect gentleman, putting a barrier of spare blankets between them in her bed, never bringing up the kisses they exchange in front of her family and sticking to banal conversation topics. Clearly, whatever confusing crush she has on him isn't reciprocated. "We have a game plan, and the sooner the tree is up the sooner me and your mother can destroy you all in a snowball fight."

"It's not fair that I have to be paired with Nate," Cooper says, ignoring his brother's offended expression. "He has terrible aim."

"Maybe you just make terrible snowballs!" Nathaniel retorts moodily, continuing to pull ornaments from the box, setting the familiar reindeer on the mantelpiece in its usual place.

Unwinding herself from Vision's arms, trying to ignore how hollow she feels without him being close by, Wanda tries to busy herself helping Cooper untangled the last of the lights and start wrapping them around the tree. But she can't help sneaking glances at Vision, bobbing his head in time to every song Lila chooses, each cheesier than the last and getting a longer groan from Cooper, wrapping lights around the curtain poles and framing the windows with lights. Can't help remembering waking up restless in the middle of the night and turning over to watch him sleep, admiring how beautiful he is when he's peaceful. When the seemingly permanent furrow of stress leaves his face, and he's not wearing his usual style as armour, and he's just himself. A person only she ever gets to see. Is it any wonder that she's found herself with feelings for him?

"Babe, can you help me with this?" she calls out, and he's immediately at her side, reaching over her to hang the more delicate baubles on the branches she can't quite reach, and the movement presses his chest into her back, sending her back to dancing with him. In fewer clothes and dimmer lighting. His breath on the back of her neck the way it is now, and she can't help a shiver.

"Are you cold?" Vision asks softly, a hand on her arm, and she nods automatically. His arm wraps around her, his lips brush against her cheek, and she feels the curve of his smile against her shoulder. "I should have bought you a space heater for Christmas."

"Why would I need a space heater when I have your weirdly warm self?" she teases, and he chuckles softly, kissing her shoulder and making her stomach swoop. "So what  _did_  you get me for Christmas?"

"You'll just have to wait to find out," he says, and she turns around in his arms, steadying herself by setting her hands on his chest and pouting up at him.

"Not even a little hint?" she asks, and he shakes his head down at her, smiling. "I bet I could get it out of you." Tilting her head up, she captures his mouth in a lingering kiss, curling her fingers into his sweater. Not too hard. Just enough to draw it up a little, and reach a hand down to brush her fingers along the strip of skin exposed. Taking a risk that pays off in a gasp into her mouth and Vision's grip on her tightening, crushing their bodies together.

"Stop making out and put the damn star on the tree so the Barton Snowball Tournament of 2017 can begin!" Lila squawks indignantly, and Wanda reluctantly stops kissing Vision, tugging his sweater down for him and thrilling smugly at the dazed look in his eyes and the blush in his cheeks. A lie their relationship may be, but at least she can see the way he looks after she kisses him in the way she wants to.

Stepping back for the big moment at which Clint switches on the lights and Vision sets the star just right atop the tree, she smiles when Vision takes her hand, trying not to giggle and blush like a schoolgirl when he raises it to his lips and kisses her palm. "You make a good decorator," she says, grinning up at him. "It's beautiful."

"Not as beautiful as you," he says, and she blushes helplessly. Because she can't help feeling like it's not a part of their lie. Not with the way he's looking at her. Or how softly he says it. And the kiss he presses to her forehead feels real, scraping at her heart with how keenly she wants it to be.

She distracts herself laughing too loudly with her siblings as they retrieve coats left in the back of the closet since last year, hissing swear words at zips jamming and making fun of the way each other look in their excessive layers, but she can't help the twinge of jealousy when she watches Lila and Cassie smiling into each other's eyes. She never used to believe it could be so bad to be single at Christmas, but watching her sister so in love, and her parents cosying up together and exchanging gentle kisses, she's never felt so lonely.

The cold hits her as soon as she steps out onto the porch, instinctively sidling towards Vision for the warmth he always seems to give off no matter the temperature, and he doesn't push her away, though some part of her wants him to, just to give her an answer to the question of whether or not he feels the same. He slides an arm around her, pulling her into his side, and she tucks her head beneath his chin and hides her face in the soft wool of the scarf she bought for him, navy and red stripes hiding the contented bliss in her smile that would surely give away her edging on romantic feelings for him.

"Okay, rules time!" Clint shouts, clapping his gloved hands together for their attention, and Wanda jerks away from Vision, hoping she can put the colour in her cheeks down to the cold outside rather than her embarrassment over being so tactile and clingy with someone she isn't actually dating. "In the traditional manner of the Barton Snowball Tournament, we will be in pairs. Me and your mother, Wanda and Vision, Lila and Cassie, and Cooper and Nate. The pair to successfully get every other pair to surrender under fire will win the tournament and have the honour of deciding what family activity we partake in tomorrow. And, yes, Cooper, whatever gets chosen is mandatory for everyone." Giggling softly at her brother's petulant expression, Wanda smiles softly when Vision reaches for her hand as tension crackles in the air.

"I'd say good luck, but this isn't a friendly competition," Laura says with a wicked smirk. "Get out of my way, kids!"

Dodging the snowball that thuds into the door, Wanda grips Vision's hand tightly in hers and sprints away from the house, heading for the edges of the farm and the protection of the trees while Clint and Laura get into an all-out battle with Cooper and Nathaniel. "This is a family tradition?" Vision asks her when they stop running, hiding behind the barn as Cooper's indignant shrieks echo across the snowy ground.

"Started when Clint and Laura adopted me as a bit of bonding time for the family," she says, already carefully forming snowballs, getting herself into the mindset of battle. "It would always be me and Lila against the world. Winners three years in a row!"

"Then I hope I won't disappoint as a partner," he says, adding a snowball to her pile of ammunition, and she turns her head to smile at him, so sweetly.

"You could never," she says, and he flushes even past the colour the cold has put into his face. Distracted for a moment, she screams when a snowball crashes against the corner of the barn's wall, spraying her with snow, and shrieks, "Go away!" at an advancing Lila.

"This is not making out time, it's war!" Lila yells back, the fire of a competitive spirit in her eyes, and Wanda ducks another snowball. Vision throws from behind her, catching Lila in the shoulder, and grabs her hand, slip-sliding over the unpredictable hills in the grass as they run in another direction, dodging chickens fluttering their wings indignantly at the commotion.

"Nice shot," she gasps when they slow down again, and Vision turns and gives her a full grin, a devastatingly handsome smile that lights up his eyes and makes her chest hurt with affection.

"I don't know where it came from," he says, and she giggles at him.

"We're awakening your competitive spirit," she says, and he turns with a snowball already in his hands, holding it out to his side and taking her hand to pull her close, the frost of their breath mingling as it rises between them, their eyes meeting and making her heart skip.

"Then you better watch out," he breathes, so close to her, and the next thing she knows he's smacked the snowball into her side, cold seeping through her layers, and backing away from her grinning like it's the funniest thing in the world.

"You ass!" she shrieks, and he laughs, watching her scrape the snow off herself, affection winning over her anger. "It's pair against pair, not you against me!"

"Maybe there should only be one winner," he says, and she adjusts her hat and smirks slowly at him.

"Well, if you wanna play it like that let's go all out," she says, and grabs a random handful of snow to throw at him, giggling at his expression when the cold sprays over him. "I should warn you, I've been snowball fighting since seven years old."

"I should warn you I go to the gym three times a week with Sam and Thor and they're both excellent personal trainers," Vision says, and for a moment she goes still imagining Vision in the gym. Not as put-together as she usually sees him, looser. On the treadmill. Running. All long legs and his hair falling in his eyes.

Snow spraying directly into her face brings her back to reality, and she screams and chases after Vision, running away from her into the edges of the land her family owns. She skids on patches of ice hidden beneath the snow, stumbling into deep snow drifts, but always getting back up, snow packing itself into every crease of her clothes. The cold seeps through her gloves as she makes the neatest snowballs she can and hurls them at Vision's back, laughing gleefully every time she hits him, her aim better than his as she dodges beneath his retaliations.

"Aren't you going to surrender?!" she shouts at him, breathless with running and laughter, and he throws another snowball at her, showering her with snow that catches in her hair and her beanie, scarf fluttering in the wind.

"You'll have to try harder than that!" he replies, grinning, and she shakes her head fondly, starting to chase after him.

Her foot hits a patch of ice hidden beneath the snow, and the next thing she knows she's on her side in the snow, ankle aching, the breath knocked out of her. Looking up, blinking away snow caught her eyelashes, she sees Vision running back to her, skidding to his knees in the snow at her side. "Are you alright?" he asks, frantically concerned, and she smiles softly at him, cheeks pink with exertion and the cold, bright and happy and everything she wants to see him be. "Wanda? Answer me!"

Gasping for breath, she crooks her fingers to beckon him closer, until his face is over hers, and he cups her cheek, smoothing snow away from her forehead. "Did you hurt yourself?" he asks, and all she can do is smile at him. "Wanda?"

He yelps when she hits him in the side of the head with a handful of snow, knocking him to the ground, and in a flurry of instinctive movement she straddles him, pinning him to the ground, and smirks down at him. "First rule of war, Vizh," she says to his melodramatic expression of abject betrayal, "don't get distracted by a damsel in distress."

"Forgive me, I thought the relationship between us would protect me," he says, lifting his hand to caress her cheek, and she leans momentarily into his touch. "I trusted you."

"There's no trust on the battlefield," she says, and when their eyes meet the tension increases twofold, making her breathing shallow. Because she's on top of him, and he's a body beneath her, and she's crouched low enough to feel his breath warm on her face, and his hand is still on her cheek, his thumb tracing her cheekbone, and she so badly wants to kiss him.

"Nate! Stop being useless and come get Wanda!"

Cooper's shout nearby makes Vision's hand drop back into the snow, and Wanda snatches the opportunity to lean down and capture his lips in a kiss. He kisses her back almost immediately, and she melts into him, tangling their gloved fingers together. Opening her mouth against his, and hearing him groan softly, hands going to her hips and gripping her tighter when she traces her tongue over his lower lip, and he grows bolder in response. There's a disconnect in her mind, a realisation that her best friend's tongue is in her mouth, and she's not pushing him away, but kissing him back, pressing herself closer to him, a familiar ache flaring up between her thighs.

"Get a room!" Nathaniel shouts, and Vision breaks away first, but not without brushing a last kiss over her lower lip, leaving her breathing shallowly and undoubtedly flushed, her heart racing. She opens her eyes to him gazing at her, and sees his pupils blown dark with arousal, and aches to keep going. To see where they could go.

"We surrender!" Vision shouts, propping himself up on his elbows, and she gives him an indignant look. "Darling, we're both soaked, and you're shivering. Time to go warm up."

Determinedly not blushing at the implied innuendo of him warming her up, knowing he definitely didn't mean it like  _that_ , she reluctantly climbs off him, tugging at her clothes in an attempt to shake off some of the snow clinging to her. He takes her hand easily when he stands up, and she tells herself it's because she is shivering with the cold that has worked its way through her clothes to her bones that she curls up to him.

Cooper is giving Vision an attempt at a threatening look, and Wanda rolls her eyes dramatically when he asks, "So why exactly were you out here making out with my sister, Vision?"

"Don't even try it, Coop," she warns, and her brother mercifully shrinks back. "I like this one, and you're not scaring him off. You'll just have to get used to seeing us kissing."

"Ew," Nathaniel comments easily, and she shoots him a glare and drags Vision past them, towards the house and away from the yelling coming from somewhere behind the barn, obviously a showdown between those remaining in the game.

The moment they're inside, Vision is flushing when he looks at her, voice very quiet as he says, "Wanda, I'm so sorry for... _that_. I got a little carried away."

"Vizh, I was on top of you, it's fine," she says, and his blush only darkens, and he looks away, seemingly unable to meet her eyes. "It's all just for my family. Whatever your instinct is to convince them we're together, it's fine to do it."

"I have no idea what I'm doing," he says, and she lifts a hand to turn his face back to hers, smiling at him.

"It's okay," she says softly. "I'm asking a lot of you here. It's only for a few weeks. We don't...the kissing doesn't have to keep happening. Not if you're uncomfortable."

"No, I...the kissing is fine," he says, and she does her best not to blush, or let her gaze drop too obviously to his lips. "I don't think your family would be convinced we're dating if we never kissed in front of them. You're never...well, you're not shy about showing affection when you're in a relationship."

"Is that your very polite way of telling me you're sick of watching me make out with people in front of you?" she asks, and giggles at his guilty expression. "I guess I am a little...demonstrative. Sometimes."

"You're like that with everyone, though, not just your partners," he says, and she smiles, tugging on the end of his scarf to bring him down so she can kiss his cheek.

"I want people to know I love them, sue me," she says, and he smiles at her as she reluctantly steps away from him to remove her coat and gloves and scarf, all saturated with melted snow.

"I always knew," he says, so softly, and her chest clenches with longing. She wants this to be real so badly, wants his arms around her to mean something more than friendship, wants the kisses to be perfect and remembered forever without the tinge of melancholy, knowing she'll have to give him up.

Free of her layers, she realises how violently she's shivering, draughts seeming to sweep through the entire house despite all the windows and doors being closed, and Vision takes her head to tug her into the front room, crouching low over the fireplace to scrape away the ashes of previous fires and spark a new one. Tugging the blanket folded neatly over the back of couch around herself, she watches him as she idly combs her fingers through her damp hair, admiring him. Appreciating the blissful companionship of the moment, how easily they fall into each other's routines, how intertwined their lives are.

When the crackle of the flames starts against the logs, Vision sets the guard in its place and falls back onto the couch next to her, his arm going around her like it's instinct, and she curls up to him, smiling into his shoulder when he presses a kiss to the top of her head. "You really feel the cold, don't you?"

"Always have," she says, and curls closer to him. "Thank God you're a ridiculously warm person." Grinning when he pulls her closer, squeezing her hand gently, she says, "You know I won our snowball fight though, right?"

"In what what did you  _win_?!" he exclaims, sounding so offended that she can't help giggling, straightening up to grin at him wickedly.

"Pretty sure getting you pinned to the ground counts as winning, Vizh," she teases, and he shakes his head at her.

"That is what we in the business call  _cheating_ , darling," he says, and she tries to ignore the catch in her breath at his easy use of the nickname.

"I'm willing to cheat to win," she says, and he gives her a pantomime expression of shock and betrayal. "The ends justify the means!"

"You are such a Slytherin," he says, and she smirks at him.

"And you are such a Hufflepuff," she teases straight back, and he shrugs and smiles. "You know, Slytherins and Hufflepuffs are ideal best friends. Both fiercely loyal - it's just that people have to earn my loyalty first and I'll tell anyone who messes with you where to get off."

"I know, you were nearly thrown out of a club for trying to start a fight with someone who was aggressively hitting on me," he says, and she gives him an angelic smile. "I'm glad you're the Slytherin I was introduced to."

"I wouldn't trade my Hufflepuff for the world," she says, and their eyes meet and her heart starts pounding almost uncomfortably hard.

The door comes flying open, and she has to straighten up and compose herself as a pouting Lila crashes into the room, followed quickly by Cooper with a fierce glare on his face, arguing back and forth with Nathaniel over whose fault it is that they lost. "Guess we know who won," Vision breathes in her ear, and his breath on her skin makes her shiver.

"I told you your mother and I would destroy you all!" Clint shouts, smugly grinning and smiling dotingly at Laura, the way only two people who met through working at an international intelligence agency can. "So we get to decide what fun family bonding activity we do tomorrow! What do you want to do, Laura?"

"I think we should go to the town Christmas market," Laura says sweetly, and grins when Cooper, Nathaniel and Lila all let out identical drawn-out groans. "C'mon, it'll be fun! They have an ice rink and a Ferris wheel and a carousel!"

"Sounds like a wonderful day, Mrs Barton," Vision says, smiling at her so genuinely, and Wanda bristles indignantly seeing Cooper roll his eyes.

"You can just call me Laura, sweetheart, it's okay," Laura says, and Wanda squeezes Vision's hand proudly, giggling when the tips of his ears turn a pleased pink.

"It  _will_  be wonderful," she says to him, and he turns to smile at her, and she takes the opportunity of her family being around to push his damp hair back from his face and smooth her hand down the side of his face to cup his cheek. "And I can find something unique to give you for Christmas."

"You mean you haven't spent months planning a heartfelt gift for me?" he asks, teasing, and she grins at him.

"I though dating me was enough of a heartfelt gift already," she says, and he smiles at her.

"Of course it is," he whispers, and lowers his head to kiss her, and her heart sings at the familiarity of his mouth on hers, her hand sliding to the back of his neck to sink her fingers into his hair, pulling him closer.

She's never had that feeling so strongly before. Like her heart is being slowly pulled away from her and given to somebody else. There's no need for her to drop her walls - with him, they've been gone for years. Instead, she needs to start building them up, because she can't have her heart broken when they go back to college and have to stop pretending.

But with each minute that passes, each time she kisses him, every time she remembers the way he looks at her for the second after they draw apart and it feels real, she becomes more and more certain that her heart isn't hers anymore. And that it's going to be broken.

* * *

Looking back on her childhood with the Bartons, Wanda can't help but laugh at how little has changed. Nathaniel is still the slowest to get ready, Cooper is still sitting in the armchair and pointedly checking the time every few seconds, Lila is still far too bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the morning and Clint and Laura still look like they're questioning their decision to have children. The only difference is Vision leaning back against the counter next to her as she blows the steam from the surface of her mug, knowing in her heart they'll be waiting a little longer while Nathaniel fixes his hair.

"I bought you that sweater, didn't I?" she asks idly, and he smiles softly, smoothing the slight creases out of his dark red sweater.

"My birthday last year," he says, and she remembers it all of a sudden, just the two of them before the celebration with their friends, sitting in his apartment with a bottle of wine between them and his eyes bright with each tiny present he unwrapped. "You insisted it would be a good colour."

"I was right," she says smugly, leaning over to kiss his forehead, their heights finally matching with her sitting on the counter. "And we match!"

He glances down at her skirt, almost an exact colour match, and ducks his head bashfully. "I didn't do it deliberately," he mumbles, and she leans into him, head on his shoulder.

"Then that's even cuter, you dork," she says, and he gives her one of his shy smiles. Feeling the weight of her family watching, she sets her mug carefully down on the counter and leans in to kiss him. He tastes like toothpaste, the scent of his cologne still fresh and strong, and she momentarily entertains the thought that this is what it would be like to be in a relationship with him. The same kiss every morning, familiar, a routine. She'd always feel herself melt into him, even though they're barely touching, always want to feel a little more of him.

"Nathaniel Pietro Barton, if you're not down here in the next  _thirty seconds_ , so help me  _God_  we are driving off without you!"

Vision breaks the kiss first, their eyes meeting for a moment before his gaze flickers away, and Wanda can't help the twinge of resentment towards Clint for interrupting. Taking a test sip of her tea, she drains the mug immediately and slides down from the counter. She feels so pathetically, helplessly grateful when Vision still takes her hand as they stand waiting in the front room, Laura pointedly tapping her foot loudly until Nathaniel appears at the top of the stairs, grumbling, "If  _someone_  had woken me up earlier you wouldn't have to wait!"

"If you didn't insist on messing around with your hair to go the the local Christmas market  _then_  we wouldn't have to wait," Cooper says, and Wanda hides her smirk in Vision's shoulder.

"How come you're not mad at Wanda and Lila, they're both fully made-up to go to the Christmas market!" Nathaniel snaps, and Wanda giggles at Lila's expression.

"Maybe try getting up a little earlier if you want to look good," she retorts, folding her arms indignantly. "You'd be amazed what the world looks like before nine am."

"Okay, kids, enough, let's get moving," Laura says, grabbing the car keys from their hook. "Vision's car is coming as well as mine, so we'll split four and four."

"I'm going with Wanda!" Lila pipes up immediately, and Wanda gives her sister a grin when both Cooper and Nathaniel groan at the prospect of a car ride together.

Frost clings to the world outside, making everything glow in the pale winter sunlight, and the cold hits her immediately, making her automatically shuffle closer to Vision. Lila and Cassie both climb immediately into the back of Vision's car, sitting close together, and Wanda tries not to let her twinge of jealousy show on her face. How much she misses that kind of easy intimacy.

Vision pulls the car out of the driveway to start following Laura's along the winding farm roads and back to something a little bit more like civilisation, and his usual jazz music starts drifting softly out of the speakers, familiar and soothing. " _This_  is what your boyfriend's music sounds like?" Lila asks derisively from the backseat, and a blush rises on Vision's neck, blotching embarrassed red over his skin.

"I like it," Wanda says, instantly on the defensive for him. "I bet Cassie would rather have a date night with this playing than you blasting rap."

"It's romantic music," Cassie pipes up, and Wanda giggles at Lila's offended expression, though Cassie immediately soothes it away by kissing her scowl.

"Well, Vizh is a romantic," Wanda says, hardly speaking to her sister anymore, and Vision glances away from the road for the briefest moment to give her a smile that warms her heart. And breaks it. Knowing that it's not real, that the romantic she's seeing glimpses of in these three weeks will be for someone else one day. It hurts to imagine Vision with someone else like this, kissing them, sleeping next to them, making their tea in the morning and being the last person they think of before they fall asleep at night.

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Someone please help me I am already bored of my family and it isn't even Christmas yes**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: That's a mood right there**

**Sharon Carter to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Ugh my dad is being so awkward about me dating a girl now**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: But didn't you come out to them when you were like sixteen?**

**Sharon Carter to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Yes, but I've never had a girlfriend before Maria. And my aunt and her wife aren't gonna be here until Christmas Eve so I have to put up with all the awkwardness and the 'so are you a lesbian now?' until then**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Gross. My gran has not shut up asking if I've met a nice boy yet. Tempted to say I've met a nice girl**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Valkyrie Johnson be my fake girlfriend to give the old bat the heart attack she deserves?**

**Valkyrie Johnson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I've been your fake girlfriend five times already this year to ward off creeps**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: My gran is the ultimate creep**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: My mom just wishes I would settle down with someone tbh**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: @Victor Shade maybe one day our love will bloom**

**Wanda Maximoff to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Why do you hit on everyone in this chat, Sam?**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Because I'm don't-give-a-fuck-osexual and you're all hot**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: @T'Challa Udaku be my back-up husband?**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: You don't think you should take the heir to the Wakandan throne over a computer science major?**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Ooh you right**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: @T'Challa Udaku I'm buying you an engagement ring for Christmas are diamonds too flashy for you?**

**T'Challa Udaku to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I would prefer something simple in all honesty. Plain gold would go well with Wakandan traditional royal wear**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Done and done. Guess I better go tell my momma I'm engaged!**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I happily offer my womb as a surrogate for your child!**

**Sam Wilson changed the group name to Sam Wilson, Consort of Wakanda (And Friends)**

**Jane Foster changed the group name to Sam Wilson, Dumbass (And His Smarter Friends)**

**Sam Wilson changed the group name to Jane Foster, A Very Mean Person (And Friends)**

**Wanda Maximoff changed the group name to Good People (And Sam Wilson)**

**Sam Wilson changed the group name to Why do you all hate me?**

**Valkyrie Johnson to Why do you all hate me?: STOP THAT my phone goes off every time you do it and my aunt is glaring at me for interrupting my little cousin's violin playing**

**Valkyrie Johnson changed the group name to Those idiots I talk to sometimes**

**Sam Wilson changed his own nickname to Consort of Wakanda**

**Jane Foster to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I'm not coming to the wedding**

**Consort of Wakanda to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Why must you hurt me in this way?**

**Wanda Maximoff to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Vizh says congratulations on the engagement. Sadly we both have to go, family bonding time!**

Stowing her phone back in her coat pocket, still smiling at the idiocy of her friends that can temporarily distract her from her spiralling over her crush on Vision, Wanda climbs out of the car and almost immediately skids on a patch of ice in the parking lot, flailing momentarily before she corrects herself. "You're a danger to yourself and others," Lila remarks as she climbs far more elegantly out of the car.

"I  _slipped_ ," Wanda protests loudly, and is distracted from her sister's smug superiority when Vision rushes to her side, expression all desperate concern.

"Did you hurt yourself?!" he asks, frantic, and she shakes her head, taking the opportunity to cling to the lapels of his coat to straighten herself up fully. She can't help the way her heart flutters when their eyes meet, noticing that the way his hat is sitting forces his hair to fall in his eyes, and smiles up at him.

"Never better," she breathes, obviously flirtatious, and grins to see a blush steal into his cheeks, tracing her hand up the rigidly stitched edges of his lapels to grab the dangling ends of his scarf and pull him in for a kiss. His hands immediately go to her waist, fingers tucked into the pockets on her coat to pull her closer, her eyes closed in bliss at the way his lips feel on hers.

"You two are adorable!" Laura's slightly squealy exclamation makes Wanda pull away first, watching Vision open his eyes slowly and look down at her with so much in his gaze to cause her breath to catch in her chest. She leans into him in the still moment, his arm around her, hand squeezing at her waist, and considers it real. Just for a second. Clings to the hope that he couldn't kiss her like that if he doesn't mean it.

"So your mother and I think it would be best for everyone involved if we all split off and do our own thing while we're here," Clint says, and Wanda giggles seeing the light and the joy come back into Nathaniel's face. "But there will be family bonding, we're all going for dinner at the Indian place around the block. Meet there at half past six,  _don't_  be late!"

Nathaniel and Cooper both immediately run off in opposite directions, eager to get away from each other in a way they never were when they were younger, and Wanda tugs Vision towards the booths, the sharp cold in the air and the drifting scents from the stalls familiar, welcoming her home. "I haven't been to a Christmas market in  _years_ ," he says softly, and she turns to smile at him.

"Well, all the ones in Manhattan are overpriced hipster conventions," she says, catching sight of the coffee booth and dragging him in that direction. "This one is much nicer. We can go ice-skating!"

"I've never been," he says, and she turns to him wide-eyed. "Well, the opportunity just never arose!"

"I wish I'd brought you home for Christmas the year we met," she says, and he smiles down at her. "C'mon, we're going ice skating before anything else."

Waving away his protests, she pays the attendant for two pairs of skates and watches him tie them on, affection warm in her chest as she watches him standing straight so carefully, unsteady on his feet. "It's easier on the ice," she says, and takes his hand. "Just follow me!"

Though she hasn't been back since last Christmas, the ice feels familiar, and she skates in a small circle before bringing herself to a stop next to the entrance, where Vision is staring at her with an expression of such wonder on his face that her breath hitches. "You make it look so easy," he says, and she offers him a hand with a small, bashful smile.

"It  _is_  easy!" she insists, trying not to laugh at the fear painted across his face as he takes a first step onto the ice, clinging to the wall. "Look, watch me."

She glides a few feet along the wall, and waits for him to catch her up. Knuckles white on the railing, he shuffles forward awkwardly, and she giggles at him, how terrified he looks. "I don't think I was made for this," he says, and she shakes her head up at him. "You're much more graceful than me, Wanda."

"Just concentrate on not falling," she says, and has to cover her mouth to muffle her laugh when he almost immediately slips, clutching at the railing for dear life. "Here, hold my hand." Even through their gloves, she can feel the warmth of his skin, and they're standing close, the people zipping past them on the ice fading into the background as she looks up at him. "Do you trust me?"

"Of course," he whispers, and lifts the hand not clutching hers to loop her hair behind her ear, and her eyes fall closed for a moment, feeling so much at his touch.

"Then hold on," she says softly, and starts to skate backwards, taking his other hand in hers and gently pulling him along until he begins to relax. To smile at her, and move his feet too, and she grins proudly. "Not so scary, right?"

"Not with you," he says, and she releases one of his hands to skate beside him, showing off in a twirl beneath his arm, bringing them closer together. On the move, he leans down and kisses her cheek, and when he pulls back she's blushing, giving him the kind of smile that can only be called besotted.

Even once off the ice, he doesn't let go of her hand as they walk around the market, and she falls into step with him. It's natural, keeping her pace up a little to stay at the same speed as him despite their height difference, stopping at the same stalls to admire the wares on offer. They spend the day wandering from stall to stall as the sun rises and dips once again in the sky, the day darkening around them as they continue on, and she feels so at peace with him, safe. He's everything she could ever have wanted in a partner, and it breaks her that what they're pretending to have will never be real. How could someone as perfect as him possibly feel anything for someone as broken as her?

Vision lingers for a long time over the art, and she leans against him, looking up to teasingly ask, "Planning on decorating even more of your apartment with abstract watercolours?"

"I'm looking for your parents," he says. "I haven't planned presents for them. Is there anything they might like?"

"Vizh, don't worry about that, you can just put your name on the presents I got for them, it's fine," she says, squeezing his hand at the obvious distress on his face.

"But will they have gotten me anything?" he asks anxiously.

"Laura mothers everybody, she'll have got you something," she says, with an affectionate roll of her eyes for her adopted mother, and stretches up to brush a kiss to his cheek. "But don't worry. They won't be expecting anything from you."

That seems to reassure him and get him to move away, on to the jewellery stall where she lights up, looking at the intricate rings and the necklaces on display, and Vision chuckles softly. "I like jewellery!" she says defensively, and he kisses the top of her head.

"I know," he says softly, breath against her skin. "Pick one."

"Wait, really?" she asks, and he nods, smiling down at her.

"I've got you the main part of your Christmas present, but I'm realising that I've never bought you any jewellery," he says, and she ducks her head to hide the affection she's sure her smile is giving away. "Pick one."

Running her eyes over the display, Vision hovering just close enough to her to keep derailing her train of thought, her eyes alight on a simple necklace almost fading amongst the showier pieces, a delicate gold chain with a simple yellow jewel hanging from it. "That one," she says, and his arm winds around her, a kiss pressed to her temple that makes her blush. "It's perfect."

"Done," he whispers, mouth so close to her ear that his lips brush her skin and send a shiver right through her.

The attendant on the booth turns around, and Wanda can't help letting out a high-pitched, " _Martha_?!" when she recognises the dark hair and strikingly blue eyes, and her ex-girlfriend's face lights up with a smile.

" _Wanda_ , oh my God!" she exclaims, and leans across the table to hug her. "How long has it been?!"

"Five years, I think," Wanda says, recognising the new English lilt to Martha's voice, seeing all the changes wrought since Martha's choice to go study in England and their inevitable and shockingly amicable break-up because of it. "How is... _everything_?!"

"Great, graduated with my first, practiced in England for a year then went travelling, this is the first time I've been back in this place for more than two weeks in  _years_ ," Martha says, giving Wanda a smile with a slightly flirtatious edge to it. "You?"

"Two years working after high school, now I'm in my last year at NYU," she says, and Martha grins. "So you're a fancy qualified lawyer now?"

"Absolutely, heading back to England after the holidays, I'm just home for my brother's wedding," she says, and Vision's arm around Wanda reminds her of where she is. Apparently reminds Martha too, because she looks up at Vision and asks, "Who's this?"

"Oh, this is Vision," Wanda says, and Vision gives Martha a stiff nod. "We're at NYU together. He's-"

"I'm her boyfriend," he says, and she nods and smiles, leaning into his side, ready for the performance. "And I'd like to buy my wonderful girlfriend that necklace."

"Of course," Martha says, and starts keying information into her till, glancing up at Vision every few seconds. "So how long have you been together?"

"Two months," Wanda answers, the sudden tension between the two setting her on edge. "He's staying with me for Christmas."

"Two months and he's already meeting your family?" Martha asks, arching an eyebrow at her. "It was six months before you let me meet them."

"Well, Vizh is special," Wanda says softly, and smiles at him as he hands over his money and carefully takes the necklace from its box, gesturing for her to turn around as he peels his gloves off. His fingers against her neck make her shiver as he carefully clasps the necklace closed, and she has to fight not to make a sound when he drops a kiss on the back of her neck. When she turns to face him, he's smiling down at her, cupping her cheek, and she's overwhelmed as she whispers, "Thank you."

"It's beautiful," he says, and leans down closer to breathe, "Just like you," before he kisses her. Not the soft kisses he's been initiating thus far, but intense, making her ache, his arms around her pulling her close. His mouth opening against hers, his tongue tracing her lower lip, and she can't help a groan thankfully muffled by his mouth, kissing him back with just as much intensity.

When the kiss breaks, at a seemingly natural endpoint rather than being interrupted, she misses the feel of his lips on hers, opens her eyes to him gazing at her so tenderly that it almost threatens to put a lump in her throat. His arms unwind from around her, his hand rising to cup her cheek, and she leans into his touch, smiling into his eyes, and he leans in once again, kissing her softer this time. Just his hand on her cheek, and her hands on his shoulders, and she's in utter bliss.

"Well I'm glad you're happy, Wanda." This kiss is interrupted, by Martha's comment, and Wanda pulls away from Vision to nod at her ex-girlfriend, a helpless smile on her lips. "Enjoy the necklace."

Waving goodbye, Wanda pulls Vision away from the booth, and once they're out of earshot he immediately asks, "So you used to date her?"

"We went to high school together," she says, trying not to read into Vision's apparent jealousy. It's just one of those weird moments in trying to marry someone from her very different high school life with someone from her college life. It would be exactly the same if Darcy or Sam or any of her friends met Martha. "She was my first girlfriend. First everything."

"She seems nice," he says, so stiffly, and then asks, "Why did it end?"

"She wanted to relocate to England, and I didn't want to go with her and wasn't ready for a long distance relationship," she says, and takes his hand in hers, squeezing it. "I'll probably never see her again except on Facebook. Thank you for the necklace, Vizh. I mean it. You don't have to do all this for me."

"I want to," he says, and she tries to calm her racing heart and push away the desire twisting hot for him. Every kiss isn't real, no matter how into it they get in the heat of the moment. She'll never know what it's like to go further than that with him.

"What time is it?" she asks, just to break the tension of the moment, and glances down at her phone to feel a spike of shock realising it's gone six o'clock, the darkness now complete. "Shit, we can't be late for dinner!"

"We won't," he says soothingly, and starts walking, weaving easily through the crowds with the advantage that comes with height. "We've got time to go and put this in my car and then go meet your family."

"Right," she says, and her hand rises as they walk, brushing against the jewel now hanging just a little lower than her mother's wedding ring, still cool to the touch, waiting to be warmed up by her body heat. No one's ever given her jewellery before. No one that mattered to her as much as Vision does, in any case.

She can't stop toying with her necklace throughout dinner, pressed up against Vision's side in their booth, too flustered to eat much of her curry. Her mind is occupied with the way he kissed her, because of them running into Martha. Wondering if he's jealous. If he might return even a fraction of her feelings.

Because she's pretty sure that she's falling in love with him. Or maybe she's already fallen.


	4. you're all i need underneath the tree

**A/N:** Chapter title from  _Underneath The Tree_ by Kelly Clarkson! And this chapter accidentally got a little bit smutty. Merry Christmas!

* * *

Christmas Eve dawns in a flurry of shouting for each other and the frantic search for every last scrap of wrapping paper in the house. Wanda tries to stay out of Laura's way as much as possible, recognising the wildness in her adopted mother's eyes that always hits the night before a momentous event like Christmas, curled up in the armchair and attempting to plough through  _Romeo and Juliet_  for her thesis. She wants to be fascinated by the role of women in the play, make notes in cramped handwriting with the pen she has tucked behind her ear, but she keeps losing herself in the romantic scenes. Reading Juliet say 'It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden' she bites her lip, thinking of Vision. Of the feelings she becomes more certain and more terrified with every day are love. Love means losing people. It always has. And he's the one person she can't lose.

**Darcy Lewis created a new group with Wanda Maximoff, Sharon Carter, Valkyrie Johnson and Jane Foster**

**Darcy Lewis named the group WHO RUN THE WORLD**

**Darcy Lewis to WHO RUN THE WORLD: Hello ladies, you may be wondering why I've gathered you all here today**

**Jane Foster to WHO RUN THE WORLD: I assume it's because you hooked up with another friend from high school and don't want Sam to tease you for a month about it like he did last year?**

**Darcy Lewis to WHO RUN THE WORLD:**   **I mean, good guess, but wrong**

 **Valkyrie Johnson to WHO RUN THE WORLD:**   **Are we finally getting a coming out from you? To make Jane officially the only straight girl?**

**Sharon Carter changed Jane Foster's nickname to Token Straight Friend**

**Jane Foster to WHO RUN THE WORLD: Rude**

**Jane Foster erased her own nickname**

**Wanda Maximoff to WHO RUN THE WORLD: What's wrong, Darce?**

**Darcy Lewis to WHO RUN THE WORLD: So...do you guys remember Ian?**

**Sharon Carter to WHO RUN THE WORLD: Your hook-up from the frat party? Sure, shy, sweet, not your usual fuckboy**

**Darcy Lewis to WHO RUN THE WORLD: I think that maybe...he wasn't just a hook-up**

**Jane Foster to WHO RUN THE WORLD: Darcy Lewis are you actually admitting that you might have genuine feelings for someone outside of dragging them back to your apartment once?!**

**Valkyrie Johnson to WHO RUN THE WORLD: I genuinely may shed a tear**

**Sharon Carter to WHO RUN THE WORLD: They grow up so fast**

**Darcy Lewis to WHO RUN THE WORLD: DON'T! Idk what I'm doing, idk what these feelings are or what to do with them, idk how to even begin to tell someone I like them**

**Jane Foster to WHO RUN THE WORLD: Well a great start might be whether you've actually talked to him since the frat party?**

**Darcy Lewis to WHO RUN THE WORLD:**   **He's messaged me every day to ask how my vacation is going. And we keep just talking about all this random stuff and he seems so sweet and I can't help it!**

 **Wanda Maximoff to WHO RUN THE WORLD:**   **Sounds like he's interested. He wouldn't have followed up if he only wanted the hook-up!**

**Sharon Carter to WHO RUN THE WORLD: Because you know all about hooking up, Miss Serial Monogamist**

**Darcy Lewis to WHO RUN THE WORLD: So how do I even start with telling him I like him?!**

**Jane Foster to WHO RUN THE WORLD: I mean the best way is probably to wait until we're all back in NY and you can see him in person and go out for coffee and be in a neutral space when you tell him. But you could always just message him if that sounds terrifying, and just say that you want whatever's going on between you to be something more!**

**Sharon Carter to WHO RUN THE WORLD: Darcy in a relationship, I could cry rn! Soon us taken girls will outnumber you single ones!**

**Valkyrie Johnson to WHO RUN THE WORLD: Oooh, about that...**

**Sharon Carter to WHO RUN THE WORLD: popcorn.gif**

**Valkyrie Johnson to WHO RUN THE WORLD: Remember that cute freshman Quill knows who had that puppy love crush on Vision and we all assumed she must be straight?**

**Valkyrie Johnson to WHO RUN THE WORLD: Not so!**

**Wanda Maximoff to WHO RUN THE WORLD: I didn't like her**

**Wanda Maximoff to WHO RUN THE WORLD: She trailed after Vizh all night at that party it was ridiculous**

**Wanda Maximoff to WHO RUN THE WORLD: She'd be the clingiest girlfriend in the world**

**Valkyrie Johnson to WHO RUN THE WORLD: Alright, Ms. Possessive, she was perfectly sweet! And she slid in my DMs last night after I posted up my gym picture, and she's getting back to NY the same day as me and we've planned to go out for drinks**

**Jane Foster to WHO RUN THE WORLD: Everyone's in relationships this is amazing!**

**Sharon Carter to WHO RUN THE WORLD: Better catch up Wanda you're falling behind!**

**Wanda Maximoff to WHO RUN THE WORLD: I literally got dumped two weeks ago can you not?**

**Darcy Lewis to WHO RUN THE WORLD: That's already too long for a hot piece like you to stay single**

**Valkyrie Johnson to WHO RUN THE WORLD: And you insist you're straight**

**Darcy Lewis to WHO RUN THE WORLD: I believe the term Sam coined is 'don't-give-a-fuck-osexual'**

**Sharon Carter to WHO RUN THE WORLD: Much as I'd like to continue to witness Darcy's blatant bisexuality, my aunt and her wife are finally here so I'm signing off!**

**Valkyrie Johnson to WHO RUN THE WORLD: Pls Instagram pics with them!**

**Sharon Carter to WHO RUN THE WORLD: Your crush on my aunt disturbs me**

"Is that the groupchat?" Vision asks as Wanda's phone finally settles out of constantly vibrating, and she looks up at him in Clint's floury apron, apparently helping to cook lunch.

"The girls only one, for talking about things we don't want you, Sam, Thor and T'Challa to know," she says, giggling at his dramatically wounded expression.

"What is there you could possibly not want us to know?" he asks. "I thought our group of friends kept no secrets!"

"That rule only applies after tequila shots, there are some things I don't need to know," she says, thinking specifically of Darcy's impossibly cheerful ranking of every hook-up since starting college that entertained the stragglers at Thor's birthday party. "If you must know, it's important things about our love lives that Sam doesn't need to start teasing us about yet."

"Can't imagine why you wouldn't want him to know," he jokes, and she smiles into her book. "Your mother wants to know if you'd like side salad with your burger."

"You know, for you saying you don't know how to handle parents, you've got mine eating out the palm of your hand," she says, and a pleased flush spills over his cheeks. "I'll just take salad for lunch, don't want to get bloated before the Stark Gala tonight."

"I still can't believe I'm going to the Stark Industries Christmas Gala," Vision says, starry-eyed with wonder, and she smiles at him, smitten. "And they're sending a  _private car_!"

"Tony was a consultant with SHIELD while Clint and Laura worked there, he was at their wedding, he's Nathaniel's godfather, of course we're getting a private car," she says, and every word just seems to increase the amazement in Vision's eyes, though she's told him the entire story before.

"Still, there was no need for Mr. Stark to issue  _me_  with an invitation," he says. "I'm not part of your family. Cassie's grandfather works with Stark Industries, it makes sense for her to go."

"Don't be silly, Vizh, of course you needed an invitation," she says. "You're part of the family!" Glancing at Nathaniel, aggressively pretending to not be watching them while he struggles with taping down the corner of a badly-wrapped present, she bites her lip and flirts, "I can't wait to see you in a suit."

"I don't want you to be disappointed," he says, and she cranes her head up to press a kiss to his jawline, one corner of her mouth curling up in an easy, wicked smirk.

"With those legs, I won't be," she says, and colour floods his face, and she doesn't forget to admire the legs in question as he speeds out of the room in embarrassment.

"Gross," Nathaniel comments loudly, and Wanda rolls her eyes, returning to ploughing through  _Romeo and Juliet_. Maybe she should switch to  _Macbeth_ or  _Othello_. Something less likely to have lines making her sigh over Vision.

"You wait til you're in a relationship," she says, enjoying the panic that flickers across her brother's face at the mere thought. "You'll be just like me."

"I thought you two had been together for two months," Nathaniel says, and she's hard-pressed not to laugh at how triumphantly he grins when he succeeds in smoothing out the wrapping paper. "Shouldn't the flirty honeymoon phase be over?"

"Honeymoon phases never end between truly compatible couples," she says, pretending like she has all the answers. "Clint and Laura are still flirty and ridiculous!"

"It's weird see you flirting with him," Nathaniel repeats petulantly, and Wanda rolls her eyes, and climbs out of the armchair to cross the room and drop a kiss on the top of her brother's head.

"Then I'll go flirt with him somewhere you can't see us," she says, and clutches her book to her chest as she goes into the kitchen, finding Laura and Vision cooking together, helping herself to the salad and perching on the counter next to the radio belting out Christmas songs.

Smiling softly at Laura's dancing as she chops peppers, Wanda gives Vision an incredibly flirtatious smile across the room, crooking a finger at him in a come-hither gesture. He moves towards her immediately, and when he reaches her she winds her arms around his neck, pulling him close. "You look cute in this apron," she says, tracing a fingertip down a navy stripe and smiling in amusement as she watches the colour rise in his cheeks. "Maybe I'll have to buy you one when we go back to college."

"There's no need for that, darling," he says, and their eyes meeting makes her chest ache, the brightness of his eyes and the softness in his gaze.

"But how am I supposed to get to keep cooking for me if you don't have an apron to protect all your expensive sweaters?" she teases gently, and he shakes his head fondly at her. "I can see it now. I think you'd look truly adorable in one of those 'kiss the cook' aprons."

"And I suppose you'd take that demand literally?" he asks, the flirtatiousness to his tone making her heart skip a beat, and she smirks at him to hide her inner turmoil.

"Of course I would," she breathes, and kisses him, his hands on her waist and pulling her closer. She wants to arch into him, wrap her legs around him and hold him in place and intensify their kiss, but Laura is right there, making obnoxious cooing noises at them. Distracting her from feeling. But she still keeps him close when he breaks the kiss, pushing a loose lock of hair away from his forehead and smiling at him. "You're a good kisser," she whispers, and he blushes.

"I haven't exactly had a lot of practice," he says bashfully, and she lifts his chin to look into his eyes.

"You're obviously just naturally talented," she says, and he grins and leans in, bringing their mouths together and cupping a hand to her cheek, and she smiles against his lips.

"Vision, not to ruin the moment, but I really do need help with this dressing." Wanda tries not to feel too much resentment towards her adopted mother when Vision pulls away, leaving her cold without him close, and she has to continue picking at salad and watching him. The length of his legs, the breadth of his shoulders, the way she can see the muscles in his arms working as he stirs sauce and flips burgers. Her imagination running away with itself, imagining clutching at those shoulders. Being held by those arms. His mouth on hers, muffling the way she might moan his name.

"Wanda, sweetheart, could you shout everyone down for lunch?" Distracted from her filthy, traitorous imagination, Wanda slides down from the counter and stands at the bottom of the stairs bellowing names until she hears footsteps.

Once they're all sat at the table, Wanda painfully aware of Vision sitting next to her, his thigh pressing into hers and welcoming all sorts of sinful thoughts into her mind, Clint says, "So the car is officially confirmed to be arriving at half past six. That means everyone has to be ready by half past six, not putting the finishing touches on yourself,  _Nathaniel_."

"Exactly, you vain dumbass," Cooper says, grinning at a petulantly pouting Nathaniel. "Are we getting a car back too, Dad?"

"Tony and Pepper are staying at the hotel for the evening, he's offered Happy to drive us back, and if any of you get bored and want to leave early just find him and he'll magically produce someone to take you, as always," Clint answers, and Wanda tries not to think about the awful Stark Gala when she was twenty-one, cut up over a recent break-up and ridiculously tipsy on complimentary champagne to the extent of telling all her woes to Cassie's stepmother.

"Just remember not to monopolise Tony's time, it's a very important night and he has to make sure to see everyone he needs to," Laura warns, glancing pointedly at Lila, and Wanda smirks into her glass at the memory of a younger Lila demanding Tony spend the entire night twirling her around the dancefloor on his toes instead of charming and wheeling and dealing as he usually would.

"I was six!" Lila snaps, and leans into Cassie's side with a glare across the table at a snickering Cooper.

"Is is going to be a terribly formal occasion, Mrs Barton?" Vision asks, and Wanda squeezes his hand reassuringly.

"How many times, honey, call me Laura!" she says, and Vision flushes, ducking his head in embarrassment. "And no, not ridiculously formal. A lot of businessmen, but also a lot of SHIELD operatives and ex-operatives, and most of them know how to have a good time." Pointedly glancing sideways at Clint, she says, "Some of them have a little too much of a good time."

"In my defence, tequila shots were Hunter's fault after Mack said him and Bobbi had turned into a old married couple," Clint says, and Laura rolls her eyes at him.

"I still would've preferred to not have to attend to my fifty year old hungover husband on Christmas Day," she says, and Wanda giggles into Vision's shoulder. "You did at least give the ladies group text a laugh."

Pushing her empty plate aside, Wanda says, "I'm off to shower and start getting ready." Vision kisses her cheek before she stands, putting a ridiculous pleased smile on her face, and her head is spinning as she rushes up the stairs and into her en-suite, locking the door firmly behind her.

That traitorous voice in her head, the one that always seem to get her into trouble by urging her to flirt with people she shouldn't, whispers that she should turn around and ask Vision to join her, and she snaps, "Shut up," out loud to herself. She cannot keep thinking of Vision sexually. It's only going to lead her mind down a dark path.

She turns the water as hot as she can stand it to try and distract herself, rubbing shampoo into her hair with more violence than necessary, nails scraping against her scalp. But it doesn't seem to help in dragging her mind away from Vision being with her, close beneath the rush of the water, kissing her with more passion that she's experienced yet. She knows how he looks at the beach, and her mind quite helpfully decides to fill in the blanks for her, imagining his naked body pressed against hers, his hands all over her, and his lips following that same path.

Her mind wanders, wondering if Vision would be any good in bed. It's the one topic they never really seem to broach in their friendship, their sex lives, beyond the occasional joke, and she's never put much thought to whether the very few girls he's been around have had sex with him. But now she's thinking about it, she can't stop herself. Taking how gentle he is with her, the way she knows his body feels against hers from years of sharing a bed and close hugs, and trying to shift that into the context of sex. His touches would be so tender, his gaze never leaving hers, and she can almost  _hear_  the way he'd whisper her name.

Her hand slips between her legs, and all the sexual frustration that's been building up over the time spent so close to him comes flooding hot to the surface, a faint moan falling from her lips. Her fantasies are normally faceless shadows, just something to tide her over between relationships, but Vision is so clear in her mind, touching her, his mouth on her neck, exactly the way she likes it. They're so compatible as friends - why shouldn't they be that way in the bedroom? He'd know instinctively how to touch her and kiss her exactly the way he knows when to offer comfort and when to leave her alone. He'd know exactly how to fuck her.

Heat twists, and her moan of, " _Vision_ ," echoes against the shower walls when she comes, thinking of him, imagining how he might feel inside her, with his mouth on hers. When the high fades, and she blinks away the spots of bright white, shame falls like a shadow across her, and she shoves her face under the stream of the shower to try and obliterate what she just did. Getting herself off to fantasies of her best friend, what is she  _thinking_?

He deserves better than being relegated to some sexual pawn in her fantasies. She shouldn't be imagining clutching at him, or thinking about him naked, or even considering imagining fucking him. Vision is her best friend, her anchor, the one unchanging thing in her world. She can't end up losing him because of her stupid libido. And now she can never erase that she once came thinking of him. It'll forever be a dark spot on their friendship. She won't be able to look at him without seeing that fantasy. Because she's  _stupid_ , and she ruins  _everything_.

Shampoo runs into her eyes, stinging, and she snatches happily at the distraction, splashing water onto her face and rubbing a towel into her eyes to try and clean them until she sees stars. She exfoliates roughly, trying to wash away her sin, and turns the temperature even higher, not leaving until her skin is pink and soft from aggressive tactics, her hair dripping down her back. Maybe if she just stays in the bathroom forever, she won't be that girl who moaned her completely platonic best friend's name.

Sighing deeply to herself and yanking at her towel to force it to stay up, she opens the bathroom door and almost immediately shrieks when she finds Vision in her room, smoothing his suit out on her bed. From behind the bathroom door, knowing her face is blazing red with her blush, she hears his voice hoarse with embarrassment, rambling out, "I'm so sorry, Wanda, I'm so sorry, I didn't realise you were going to open the door, I swear I didn't see anything, let me just leave and you can get dressed, I'm so sorry!"

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't...I should've knocked or something," she mumbles from behind the door, desperately concentrating on this Vision, the real one, and not her fantasy. They are not the same person, one just a parody of the other. This Vision is her best friend, shy and terrible at trying to flirt and closely guarded about his sex life, and she will never have hot shower sex with him. Unfortunately. Then she mentally slaps herself for thinking that.

"I'll go back downstairs until you're a little more clothed," she hears him say, and footsteps cross the room, away from her. Her inner voice pipes up that she should just open the door, let her towel fall and take what happens next as it comes, but she forces it into silence.

What would happen? He'd laugh, or run out of her room in horror, and she'd lose him. Sex is the easiest way to ruin a friendship - she'll probably never speak to Natasha again, and that's because they had sex. So she cannot have sex with Vision, or even think about it. No matter how good she thinks it would be, that he'd touch her they way she wants to be touched, and fuck her the way she wants to be fucked. All of those thoughts need to be repressed way, way down, so they'll never see the light of day again. Back to thinking about shadows when she fantasies, or a particularly noteworthy ex. Not all of them broke her heart.

Towelling herself dry roughly in one final effort to scrape off her sin, she picks out one of the only matching underwear sets she owns, reserved for date nights and the annual Stark Industries Gala, and covers that with her robe, sitting down at her vanity and emptying her make-up bag out across the wood with an almighty clatter, ready to spend the next few hours getting ready with the luxury of time. Routine distracts her from her conflict with her own thoughts, allowing her to concentrate deeply on each individual step rather than lose herself in a spiral of desire and self-hatred. But she still needs reassurance that what she's done isn't unforgivable, is commonplace, even, and reaches for her phone to seek out advice from anyone who isn't Vision.

**To: Val**

**If I ask you something do you cross your heart promise that no one else will find out about it from you?**

**From: Val**

**Sure thing, cutie. What's the problem?**

**To: Val**

**So, is it normal to occasionally find yourself having sexual feelings for your friends? And they don't have to mean anything more?**

**From: Val**

**Um...context please? Because my brain just went in a thousand directions at once**

**To: Val**

**Seriously, you can't tell anyone! I need this to stay just between us!**

**From: Val**

**Seriously, I promise I won't tell anyone. C'mon, Wanda, I'm not Darcy or Sam when I say I won't tell anyone I mean anyone!**

**To: Val**

**So when I brought Vizh home with me for Christmas my parents kinda...mistook him for my boyfriend. And we just played along. And now I keep having all these thoughts about him that I don't wanna have but tbh it's kinda hot and I don't want it to stop but I do because I don't want to wreck our friendship**

**From: Val**

**Okay**

**To: Val**

**That's helpful**

**From: Val**

**I'm processing that entire text because that's a lot!**

**From: Val**

**But I think having occasional sexual desire towards your friends is perfectly normal and not at all anything to be ashamed of. Especially with you and Vision, you're both very attractive people and you're pretending to be dating, that's bound to stir up some stuff. It probably doesn't mean anything except that you're sexually frustrated**

**To: Val**

**You're serious? It's not weird?**

**From: Val**

**Well, I'd be lying if I said I'd never thought about any of our friend group in a sexual way. I don't think it makes me weird. And it hasn't ruined any of my friendships!**

**To: Val**

**So have you ever thought about me like that?**

**From: Val**

**Don't push your luck, Maximoff, or my secret-keeping will suddenly and unexpectedly fail**

**To: Val**

**Val I swear to God!**

**From: Val**

**Joking! Carry on with your fake relationship, who am I to judge?**

Vision doesn't open her door again until she's putting the finishing touches on her hair, gingerly setting her curlers down and turning around to give him a soft smile. Pushing away all shame and sexual desire and just being his friend. "I'm so sorry," he starts once again, but she shakes her head at him.

"It's fine," she says, and he visibly relaxes. "Look, we're sharing a room, we're sleeping in the same bed, we're pretending to be a couple. It would look stranger if you refused to go into a room because I might not be fully-clothed."

"Right," he says, a little roughly, and she turns away from him, trying not to let colour flare in her cheeks at the similarity of his voice here in reality to his voice in her fantasy. She's not letting herself think about that. "So have you decided which dress to wear tonight? You were struggling to choose between two, weren't you?"

"The red one, I think," she says, critically examining her job on her make-up now her hair is falling around her shoulders in loose curls, almost the complete look. "Val talked me into buying it in the sale last spring and I've never had a reason to wear it."

"Good thing I have a red tie with me, then," he says, and she can't help grinning at her reflection at the thought that they're going to be matching, looking like a  _couple_.

"Wanna hear some gossip?" she asks casually, their friendship falling into the same rhythm it always does when they're together, the same meaning that her keeping a secret means Vision will know unless it's seriously important to keep it to herself. He smiles at her in the mirror, and she spins around on her seat and folds her legs up beneath her, watching him squinting into his tiny mirror to fix his hair. "So Darcy has feelings for that guy she hooked up with at the frat party, and Val has a date with that friend of Peter's that followed you around all night at Gamora's birthday party. Our group of friends is rapidly becoming relationship central."

"Don't forget that Sam and T'Challa are engaged," Vision teases, grinning, and Wanda rolls her eyes fondly at him. Glancing at the clock on her nightstand, she stands hastily and snatches her dress from its hanger, dodging into the bathroom to get into it and adjust the neckline for a long time in an attempt to not look indecent. It makes sense that it was Valkyrie who convinced her to buy something so low-cut.

Unable to reach to zip herself up, she clutches at the dress and slides the door slowly open, only to freeze for a moment staring at Vision. She's never seen him in a full suit before, gaze travelling so slowly from his bare feet to his face, still turned away from her. He's stunning, and somehow she missed that for three years.

He finally turns to look at her, and makes a weird strangled sound somewhere in the back of his throat that she forces herself immediately to forget, and not think is because of her outfit. "Zip me up?" she asks, and he nearly stumbles over himself to get to her as she turns to face him. Having him so close makes her heartbeat speed up, impossibly faster, and when his knuckles brush against her bare back as he slowly slides the zip closed, so careful not to catch her skin in the zipper, she shivers helplessly. To keep him close, she reaches for the necklace he bought for her, unclasping it and reaching behind her to hand him the loose ends. He clasps it without her even having to ask, the silence holding tense between them, and drops a kiss on the top of her head.

She turns to face him, her breathing turning shallow, and catches his gaze hastily rising to meet her eyes. Smirking slightly, she teasingly admonishes, "My eyes are up here."

He ducks his head bashfully, blushing bright, and takes the opportunity to check him out once again, grinning to herself. Then he looks up, and he's starting to smile too, and teases, "So are mine."

"I was right, you know," she says, and stretches up to kiss his cheek, breathing, "Your legs look  _amazing_ ," and giggling to herself when he blushes all over again.

The teasing fades away into sincerity, without flirtatious agenda, when she adjusts his tie and smiles up into his eyes and says, "You look gorgeous, Vizh."

"So do you," he says, and she beams at him. He gives her that smile only she ever gets to see, so sweet and unrestrained, and whispers, "'I ne'er saw true beauty til this night'" and her knees turn to liquid.

"Did you just quote  _Romeo and Juliet_  at me?" she asks softly, trying to cover up how shaken she is with teasing.

"You were reading it earlier, and I do remember reading it in high school," he says, tucking her hair behind her ear and making her heart skip a beat, wishing he would lean down and kiss her. But he won't. Not while they're alone. "And you're beautiful."

"Whoever ends up with you is gonna be so lucky," she says softly, and steps away from him. Hollowness hits as soon as his hands fall away from her waist, and she swallows the sudden lump in her throat, blinking frantically. She's not some infatuated idiot who'll cry knowing her crush isn't interested in her. She's an adult who knows her ridiculous crush on her friend has to go away so it doesn't create any rift between them.

Ending her long process of getting ready with a spritz of perfume and sliding her feet into her heels, she takes his hand and drags him down the stairs with her, finding her family magically already waiting, all ready for the evening ahead of them. "Who said you could wear  _that_?!" Clint exclaims in horror, and Wanda rolls her eyes as she grabs her coat from the hook.

"I can wear whatever dress I want, I'm an adult," she says, and giggles at Clint's expression, so annoyed that he can't do anything to fight her conclusion.

"You look beautiful, sweetheart," Laura says, and Wanda smiles at her, curling herself into Vision's side. "Doesn't she look beautiful, Vision?"

"Yes," Vision says sweetly, and she looks up to find his gaze resting on hers. "She does." He lowers his head to kiss her, their fingers tangled together, and she kisses him back in a rush of need, clinging to the perfect moment.

"Car's here!" Cooper shouts from the door, and Vision pulls away so slowly, seemingly taking half her heart with him.

"We've not even left the house, and you're already wrecked your lipstick," Lila teases, and Wanda flushes, grabbing a compact mirror from her purse as they climb into the car and trying to fix her lipstick in the orange glow of the streetlamps flashing past.

The gala is hosted at the same hotel every year, familiar, and almost the moment they get into the reception area and hand their coats to an attendant there's a shout of, "Barton!" and Tony Stark comes racing out of the ballroom, tackling Clint in a ridiculous hug. "It's been too long!"

"You're always busy, Stark, don't know how you expect me to see you!"

"Maybe you shouldn't have retired to a farm in the middle of nowhere then we'd still see each other all the time when I'm consulting with Fury!"

"I like the farm!"

"Sure, sure, it must be so much more fun than international assignments in beautiful countries surrounded by beautiful women," Tony says, then turns his beaming grin on Laura. "Speaking of which, how  _are_  you, Laura?"

"Just peachy, Tony," Laura says, rolling her eyes when Tony bows extravagantly low to kiss her hand. "Where's Pepper?"

"Mingling with the boring old men, being charming, all her usual," Tony says, affection softening his eyes, then turns to Wanda. "Look at you, Wanda, you're looking stunning."

"Thank you," Wanda says, not missing Vision's arm tightening around her protectively. "Tony, this is Vision, my boyfriend."

"Great to meet you," Tony says, holding a hand out that Vision takes hesitantly to shake. "I've never met once of your notorious boyfriends before, kiddo. This one special?"

"Very," she says, leaning into Vision's side, and Tony smiles at her.

"Young love, it never gets old!" he says, and Wanda grins at him. "Alright, best move on, this stupid hosting thing means I have to talk to everyone! The usual gang are all propping up the bar, go find them. Hunter and Bobbi brought their new baby."

The mention of that, when the last time she saw Hunter and Bobbi they were still arguing about names, has Wanda dragging Vision into the ballroom, weaving through crowds of businessmen with loud voices and frozen charming smiles to the table nearest the bar and the familiar crowd. Mack sees her first, grins and stands to hug her, and she tries to keep Vision's hand in hers, feeling him stiffen up shyly the way he always does with crowds of new people. "Vizh, these are all colleagues of my dad's from his SHIELD days," she says, pulling a chair out for him and folding herself happily into his lap. "Alphonso Mackenzie, Elena Rodriguez, Lance Hunter and Bobbi Morse."

"May should be along later," Hunter says, and Wanda notices how exhausted he looks, and yet happy, glancing proudly down at the baby in his lap every few seconds. "Look at you, you look beautiful. This the man of the moment, then?"

"More than just the moment," she says, and lifts Vision's chin to kiss him, feeling him relax beneath her. "How's parenthood treating you?"

"Seriously exhausting, but we're happy, aren't we?" he says, and Bobbi smiles, leaning over to kiss her husband. "And we love our little guy, don't we, Jack?"

"Can I hold him?" Wanda asks, a little shyly, and Hunter stands up to bring Jack over to her, setting the baby so carefully in her arms.

"I didn't know you liked kids," Vision says, very quiet in the low rumble of a noisy room, and she drags her gaze away from Jack's tiny face to look into his eyes, flickering between her and the baby she's cradling.

"I didn't, not for a long time," she says, unable to shake off the feeling of the moment, like they're a tiny family unit, with a baby in her arms and her in Vision's lap. "Guess I'm getting more sentimental the older I get. I wanna be a mom, someday. Have a family."

"Me too," he whispers, so faintly she must be the only one that hears it, and her stomach flips, her mind helpfully immediately thinking of  _them_  having a family. Children, a house with a white picket fence, a dog, stability. Everything her childhood didn't have, and neither did his.

When Clint and Laura catch up to them, she has to climb out of Vision's lap, but still shuffles her chair closer to his, the raucous conversation that always hits whenever her parents and their friends are all together again washing over her. Instead she just feels how warm Vision is, his cologne familiar, cosies up to him and watches Jack be passed around the table, everyone cooing over how adorable he is. She's old enough to vaguely remember when Nathaniel was being passed around like that, when she was eight years old and still unsure of her place in the family. The year Tony and Pepper were planning their wedding, and affection ruled the room. The year Elena finally persuaded Mack to stop resisting the pull between them, and they were first together. This table has always felt like family.

Once dinner has been brought out by the waiters, the youngest of whom winked flirtatiously at Wanda and made Vision's arm tighten convulsively around her, Tony and Pepper make their way over to the table, Tony bearing a tray of complimentary champagne that he sets down in the centre of the table. "Now I can talk to the people I actually like around here," he says cheerfully, ignoring Pepper rolling her eyes, and sits himself down. "How are you all? We really need to try and meet up more than once a year."

"Same old, same old," Hunter says. "Assignment after assignment, Fury's doing his best to make up for my months of paternity leave."

"You could always take early retirement," Clint points out.

"Sorry, mate, but I don't think fixing tractors and playing golf is enough excitement for me," Hunter says to a burst of laughter.

"So, Wanda's boyfriend, what's your story?" Tony asks, and Wanda kisses Vision's shoulder reassuringly when she feels him tense up with nerves. "No need to be scared, we don't bite. If you've made it past Clint's overprotectiveness the rest of us are a breeze."

"I am  _not_  overprotective!" Clint snaps, and Laura snorts into her wine. "I'm  _not_!"

"Sure, Barton, I've never personally witnessed you threaten waiters for hitting on Wanda," Tony says, and Wanda smirks at Clint's expression. "C'mon, Vision, share a little."

"There's not much to know," he says with a shrug, and Wanda curls closer to him, laying her head on his shoulder, knowing they're the very picture of a ridiculously in love young couple. "Wanda and I know each other from college, we've been friends since our first month of freshman year, and we got together in October."

"And what about you?" Tony asks. "What do you do?"

"I'm a computer science major," he says, his hand on Wanda's side sliding down to cup her waist, pulling her a little closer to him, and she soaks up the closeness. "Looking to get an internship after I graduate, but nothing's worked out yet."

"How old are you?" Tony asks again, eyes probing and curious.

"Twenty-five."

"This boy is older than you?!" Clint asks abruptly, and Wanda rolls her eyes.

"Two years, Clint, exactly the same age difference as there is between you and Laura," she says, raising her head to kiss Vision's cheek.

"See, Vision, Stark Industries takes on a few interns every year, paid interns mind you, and the minimum age is twenty-two," Tony says, and Wanda can feel Vision's sudden excitement. "So what if I were to give you an email and you could send me through some more information and we can see about getting you an internship?"

"Really?!" Vision asks, and Wanda bites her lip to stop her smile spreading too wide, seeing the joy dancing in his eyes. "That would be a dream come true, Mr. Stark, really!"

"Tell all the companies that rejected you where to get off, Stark Industries is definitely interested," Tony says, and Wanda grins at him, clutching Vision's arm proudly.

After a few glasses of champagne, the host of the gala being at her table meaning the waiters make sure to never leave them empty, Wanda is back in Vision's lap, his arms around her while he listens to the back and forth between all the SHIELD agents about the good old days. Her head is pleasantly fuzzy, the warmth of alcohol making her feel like floating, and she tips Vision's head up to press a soft kiss to his lips and whisper, "Dance with me?"

The gold-jacketed band on the podium are playing the sweetest kind of music, made for late night lovers, and she doesn't feel any shyness in pressing close to Vision, her heels affording her the height to rest her chin comfortably on his shoulder as they sway together, moving in slow circles. "Are you enjoying yourself?" she asks softly.

"I never though a gala would be so fun," he says, and she giggles. "Clint's friends are very entertaining."

"You should've met them before they were all settled down, back when I was little," she says. "Hunter used to be wild, him and Bobbi had a ridiculous on-off relationship before they finally got married. He's Cooper godfather. Mack is Lila's."

"I hope that's how we'll be with our friends one day," he says, and she leans back to smile at him.

"We will be," she says. "Jane and Thor will be that ridiculous college sweethearts married couple. Darcy and Sam will be the fun ones. Sharon might still be with Maria. Val will always be seeing someone fun and new. T'Challa will be the mature one."

"And we'll still be best friends," he says, and she smiles at him, their gaze into each other's eyes not breaking.

"Always," she promises, and kisses him softly. Something about kissing him while they're slow-dancing in the candlelight melts her heart, makes her sure that she's fallen for him. There's no in-progress when it comes to the way she feels about him - it's been there for a long time, longer than she knows. She couldn't even begin to explain what a huge part of her life he is, how much of her heart is his. When his mouth is on hers, she forgets that it's pretend. Everything is him.

"I can hear your phone going off," he murmurs when she breaks out of the kiss, and she tries not to be disappointed that that's all he has to say after such a sweet kiss. Instead she reaches into her bag for her phone, expecting it to be one of her friends bored out of their mind with spending time with their family.

**From: Natasha**

**I can't believe you ruined our friendship and my friendship with everyone else because we broke up**

**From: Natasha**

**You know you were never emotionally available**

**From: Natasha**

**Not to me**

**From: Natasha**

**And Steve actually wanted to be with me. He asked me out on Halloween, but then you happened. And he would never have pursued me while I was dating someone else**

**From: Natasha**

**But now he's actually proud to have me. His mom knows everything about me**

**From: Natasha**

**So obviously we got together as soon as I let you go. There was no cheating, no deliberate action to hurt you. You never really wanted me**

**From: Natasha**

**So stop being pathetic and let us back into the group**

"Wanda?" Vision's voice brings her back to the moment, as her chest aches with the reminder of heartbreak after such a nice week at home, and she looks up at him with tears stinging her eyes, hardly able to breathe. "Who is it?"

Unable to get the words out, sticking like glass in her throat, she hands him her phone and watches his expression darken, rage flicker across his eyes. "Why would she do that?" she asks, and her voice sounds so pathetic, small and sad. "Why would she ruin my Christmas? Why would she tell me about her and Steve?!"

The first tear falls when she blinks, and Vision pulls her close, hand tight around hers as he pulls her off the dance floor, out of the light. "How can she say that I never really wanted her?" she says, and she's starting to cry, her voice thick with emotion. "I  _loved_  her!"

Steering her away from the crowds of people, around waiters frowning at her when they notice her shoulders shuddering violently, Vision pushes a door open and they're out in the night, the paving and tables at the back of the hotel deserted. And she's crying in earnest, collapsing onto a padded bench and clutching at herself, holding herself together as she falls apart all over again. "Why is she doing this?" she asks faintly, looking desperately up at Vision for answers. "I know she's with Steve. I know she never wanted me. I didn't need her to  _tell_  me."

"She has no right to do that," he says viciously, setting her phone down on the table between them, anger in the set of his mouth. "There's absolutely no need to be pursuing you because the group has cut her off. She should go to Sharon, it was her idea to remove them from the chat."

"I never wanted this," she sobs out. "I never wanted to wreck a friendship. I just...it was Halloween and I was drunk and I wanted to kiss her and she kissed me back and I asked if she wanted to just forget about it, I  _asked_ , and she said  _no_ , she said she wanted me!" Her voice rises to a shriek, driven equally by idignancy and misery, as she adds, "I gave her  _everything_  and she tells me I'm  _emotionally unavailable_!"

"You're not," he says, sitting down next to her and putting his arm around her, voice soft and soothing and sweet. "You are so loving, Wanda, you give everything you have to every relationship. Natasha has absolutely no right to throw these accusations around you. She made you happy, and she took it upon herself to tear that away for no apparent reason."

"That always happens," she says miserably, wiping her eyes on her hands and watching make-up streak dark across her skin. "I'm not allowed to have any joy in my life. Guess I'm just too fucked up for anyone to actually want to stick around."

"Don't say that," Vision says, stroking her hair, and she can't stand to look at his eyes while stuck in her spiral of self-loathing, how sincerely kind he is breaking her. "Please, Wanda, don't ever say that."

"It's  _true_!" she insists. "No one wants me. Every boyfriend, every girlfriend, they all pulled away. I don't even speak to any of my high school friends anymore. No one sticks around because I scare them all away. I'm terrible and they don't want me around."

"They're the terrible ones to make you feel like this," he says forcefully, and his hand is on her cheek, lifting her head to look into her eyes. "You're  _perfect_."

He kisses her, his warmth bleeding into her against the cold night air, and it's tender and so touchingly sweet that tears rise in her throat, his lips so gentle on hers. When he pulls away, their foreheads rest together for just a moment, and her heart melts completely, all for him. Her eyes open so slowly, to find him pulling away, face flashing through so many different emotions too fast for her to read. "Wanda...I...you...you're my best friend," he says, the words a seeming effort, and looks away. "I, um...I meant that platonically. I hate it when you talk about yourself like that."

"I can't help it," she says softly, wishing she was alone so she could lift a hand to her lips and touch where he kissed her, and it felt real. "And it's true. It has to be."

"No it doesn't," he says. "Not everything is your fault. Those people weren't right for you, they didn't understand, and you don't want or need them in your life. You're perfect, and someone is going to see that one day."

"The way you do?" she asks, slipping out of her without her meaning to say it, and she can't look at him for a moment, so scared of losing him for showing vulnerability.

"The way all our friends and your family do," he says, and moves closer to her. For one magical, dizzying split-second she thinks he might kiss her again, but instead he wraps his arms around her in a tight hug, kissing her cheek, and she clings to him.

"You're shivering," he whispers, and pulls back to shed his blazer and wrap it over her shoulders, wiping a tear away with his thumb. "Do you want me to ask Mr. Stark for a car home?"

She nods, and he stands up, helping her to her feet on her heels, and keeping her close to his side when they walk back inside, leaving the magical moments where they're alone outside. She tries not to dwell on him kissing her while they're alone, on how sweet it was, because he meant it platonically. To quiet her, stop her from continuing to spiral. And the way he holds her in the car going back to the farm means nothing. He's just being a good friend to her, unzipping her dress and unclasping her necklace and going into the bathroom to change himself.

But he doesn't put the barrier up between them tonight. He slides into bed next to her, holding her and stroking her hair, and the last thing she remembers before falling asleep is his insistent whisper of, "You're  _perfect_."

* * *

**T'Challa Udaku to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Merry Christmas everybody. Hope you're all having a wonderful holiday.**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Merry Christmas! *pops bottle***

**Jane Foster to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Merry Christmas from Thor and I!**

**Sharon Carter to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Merry Christmas!**

**Consort of Wakanda to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: MERRY CHRISTMAS BITCHES**

**Jane Foster to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Ugh I forgot about your stupid nickname**

**Consort of Wakanda to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Don't hate me cause you ain't me!**

**Valkyrie Johnson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Happy international day of being allowed to drink before 12pm!**

**Sharon Carter to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Val, really?**

**Valkyrie Johnson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: It's five o'clock somewhere!**

Woken by the rattle of her phone vibrating against her nightstand, Wanda smiles when she realises where she is, curled back against Vision the way she's wanted to be all of the holiday. His breathing is still deep and even, obviously sound asleep, his breath warm on the back of her neck. It's the way she'd be happy to wake up every morning, next to his warmth and peaceful, and she slides her fingers between his where his arm is resting loosely over her waist, curling closer.

His hand is pressing into her back, and she cranes her head to look at him, slowly blinking himself awake, bringing the hand not entwined with hers up to rub his eyes. "Good morning," he mumbles sleepily, and she smiles, snuggling back into him while he's still half-asleep and open to cuddling with her.

Then she jerks upright, because he's stretching out one arm, the other still draped over her, and she can see both his hands. And she's no stranger to what has to still be pressed against her hip. His eyes go suddenly wide, apparently realising at the exact same moment that his erection is pressed against her, and he shoots out of bed, bolting into the bathroom and leaving her sitting on the bed.

Arousal spikes in her immediately, knowing that she was lying next to him while he was turned on. Because of her? Her libido certainly wants to think so, already making sure she'll always remember her best friend's hard-on against her back. His breath on her neck and his arm around her, and he was turned on.

The good friend in her pushes her to get out of bed, knocking on the firmly closed bathroom door and saying, "Vision?"

No response but silence, stretching out thin with tension.

She knocks on the bathroom door again, and calls out, "Vizh, it's okay. Please don't be embarrassed."

"I'm so sorry," he says, and he sounds like he wants the floor to swallow him up. He didn't lock the door, and she thinks about just opening it. Her mind goes off on a tangent of its own accord, thinking about all that could come to pass if she confronted him, and she stops herself hastily. No need to think about how she really doesn't mind Vision being turned on.

"It's fine, really, I'm fine with it," she says, then winces at letting that particular truth slip out. "It's  _natural_ , Vizh. Happens to the best of us."

The door slides open slightly, and he peers through the gap at her, face blazing red with a blush. "You're not mad?" he asks, and she shakes her head at him.

"Why would I be mad?" she asks, and he shrugs. "It's okay, Vizh, really."

"Okay," he says, and looks away. "I'm...I'm going to shower."

It's her turn to blush violently, scrambling away from the door and definitely not letting herself think about all the double meanings that showering could mean. Definitely not remembering that she touched herself to the thought of him in that shower yesterday, and hoping that he might do the same thinking of her. And certainly not letting that visual make it any further than a minor supposition at the back of her mind.

Instead she gets herself dressed for the day, in her oversized Christmas sweater and leggings for maximum comfort, and open the door to find her tiny monogrammed stocking hanging from the handle, perching cross-legged on her bed and shelling open the usual miniature presents. Another set of rings, a set of highlights in pretty pastel shades, black and red lace hair ties, a pair of thickly-knitted socks patterned with snowmen and a tiny box of truffles.

She looks up from making notes in her copy of  _Macbeth_  -  _Romeo and Juliet_  will just have to wait until her infatuation with Vision fades - when the bathroom lock turns, and nearly chokes on air when Vision slides the door open wearing only a towel. Her eyes completely bypass his face to stare at his chest for a long,  _long_  time - when exactly did her best friend get abs?

"Wanda?" His voice makes her look away, if only for a moment, the way he looks happily already imprinted on her memory, and he's still flushed, struggling to meet her eyes. "Could you toss me my bag?"

She reaches down for it, avoiding his eyes, and throws it to him, the door closing behind him and any semblance of concentration is shattered by the knowledge that Vision has  _abs_. Defined ones. Ones she wants to stare at without shame and touch and very possibly put her mouth on - and  _that_  is a train of thought she will not be letting her mind go down.

Instead she piles all her belongings at the bottom of the bed, and calls out, "I'm gonna go make breakfast, Vizh, do you want French toast?"

"That would be wonderful!" Vision calls back, and she leaves him to finish changing, running into a still-silent house. The sun has barely risen, the sky still pale with the dawn, and she switches the kettle on and ducks outside to let the chickens out, throwing out a few handful of feeds before she starts making breakfast.

By the time Vision joins her, in a garish sweater patterned with sprigs of holly, she's almost finished making their food, and hands him his cup of coffee. "Merry Christmas," he says, smiling at her, and she can't help but smile back.

"Merry Christmas." She leans over and kisses his cheek, breathing in his cologne and feeling his warmth. "I'm glad you're here."

"I'm happy to spend today with someone as important to me as you," he says, and her heart simultaneously hurts and heals. At least he cares about her. Even if he doesn't love her the way she wants him to.

Blissful quiet companionship can only last so long before the rest of her family have joined them, and they're all gathered in the front room, waiting to open their presents. Wanda watches Lila open a set of the textbooks she needs for her next semester and shrieks her thanks, Clint open a new set of golf clubs with a grin, Cooper and Nathaniel laughing over having gotten each other the same set of gloves, and Vision smile over the sweater she's bought him, identical to the one she stole the morning after the frat party and has no intention of giving back.

Then Vision hands her an envelope with her name written on it in his neat hand, and she smiles into his eyes before she eagerly rips it open, pulling out the card and reading the note inside.  _Wanda - you always make me feel at home no matter where we are. And I want to give you the opportunity to see your first home again._

She stares for a long time at the two tickets taped carefully into the card, and looks up at him with tears stinging her eyes. "You...you're taking me to Sokovia?" she asks faintly, and he nods.

"After graduation," he says. "Sokovia's been rebuilt after the civil war now, it's a beautiful place to go on holiday, such a rich culture and interesting history and beautiful scenery. You obviously don't have to take me, I got you two tickets so you can take whoever you want."

"I...I haven't been back in sixteen years," she says, still unable to comprehend what he's done for her. "And you're taking me to Sokovia?!"

"I...Wanda, you're crying." She swipes at her eyes in frustration, more tears spilling hot down her cheeks, and Vision leans in close, cupping her cheek, eyes all concern. "I didn't mean to upset you. I can return the tickets if you would like me to."

"Vizh, you...you have  _no idea_  how much this means to me," she whispers, the world narrowed to just them. "You're taking me  _home_." And she kisses him, wrapping her arms tight around his neck, unable to help the tears on her cheeks, and he kisses her back, and she tries to prove that there's no pretense behind this kiss. And it's not meant platonically. It's meant for the moment she truly knows she's in love with her best friend, the moment when he's made her wildest daydreams of returning to Sokovia come true, the moment her heart is wholly in his hands.

When they break apart, she sniffs and wipes her eyes, smiling at him. "You got me this, and all I got you was a sweater," she says, and he grins. "Do you really have to completely outdo me?"

"Believe me, Wanda, you've outdone me," he says, and runs a hand through her hair, so gentle. "The only gift I need is having you in my life."

And if she wasn't already sure that she's madly in love with him, that would do it.


	5. this year's for me and you

**A/N:** Hope everyone had and is continuing to have a fun and relaxing holiday! Welcome to the penultimate chapter - hope it was worth the wait!

Chapter title from  _Fairytale of New York_ by The Pogues

* * *

**Wanda Maximoff to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Ugh my most recent ex keeps trying to get in touch**

**Consort of Wakanda to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: THAT BITCH**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: What more than just the text on Christmas Eve?**

**Wanda Maximoff to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: We’ve now graduated to calling me**

**Valkyrie Johnson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Okay well you know what you have to do**

**Wanda Maximoff to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I thought about blocking her number but what if she just gets Steve to start calling me instead?**

**Valkyrie Johnson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Don’t pick up the phone, you know she’s only calling cause she’s drunk and alone. Don’t let her in, you’ll have to kick her out again. Don’t be her friend, you know you’re gonna wake up in her bed in the morning. If you’re under her, you ain’t getting over her**

**Sharon Carter to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Val those are song lyrics**

**Valkyrie Johnson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Do not question the wisdom of Dua Lipa!**

**Jane Foster to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Not to derail Valkyrie’s excellent relationship advice**

**Valkyrie Johnson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I sense mocking**

**Jane Foster to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: But I have big news and I want to tell you guys before I go public!**

**Jane Foster to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: [photo]**

The involuntary excited squeal that Wanda lets out draws every eye in the room to her, her family looking up from being absorbed in their phones or books received for Christmas or the film playing in the background. “Are you alright?” Vision asks, face painted with concern, and she shuffles along the couch to his side.

“Jane and Thor are  _ engaged _ !” she exclaims, hearing the breathless excitement in her own voice, and showing him the picture of Jane’s hand with a simple silver ring newly in place. “Look, babe,  _ engaged _ !”

“Wow,” Vision breathes, staring at the photo for a long moment, affording her the opportunity to stare at him. Drinking him in, wearing the sweater she got him for Christmas, material soft beneath the hand she has resting on his shoulder, blue-eyed and handsome, and she is once again so sure that she’s in love with him. Has been every hour since Christmas morning, waking up in the night and admiring him, finding excuses to kiss him, and dreading the moment at which reality will set back in and she’ll have to begin the heart-wrenching process of getting over him.

“Isn’t that amazing, Vizh?” she prompts, and he looks up at her and smiles so warmly, and her heart melts into his hands.

“Tell her congratulations,” he says, but something seems off with him. Making a mental note to ask him about it when they’re alone later, Wanda returns to her phone.

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: OH MY GOD IS THAT AN ENGAGEMENT RING YOU GUYS ARE ENGAGED???**

**Jane Foster to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: IT IS WE’RE GETTING MARRIED THOR PROPOSED LAST NIGHT!!!**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: OH MY FUCKING GOD I’M SO FUCKING HAPPY FOR YOU**

**Sharon Carter to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Congratulations! Can’t wait to celebrate properly when we’re all back in NY!**

**T’Challa Udaku to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Congratulations Jane, and to Thor if he ever checks his phone**

**Valkyrie Johnson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Oh thank god he finally put a ring on it he’s had it for *months* I had to read four different drafts of his proposal speech**

**Jane Foster to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: YOU KNEW???**

**Valkyrie Johnson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Contrary to popular belief I am actually capable of keeping secrets!**

**Wanda Maximoff to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Vizh says congrats, Jane, and so do I! It couldn’t have happened to a better couple!**

**Consort of Wakanda to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Wow rude what about me and T’Challa?**

**Wanda Maximoff to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Doesn’t count until there’s a ring on it!**

**Wanda Maximoff erased Sam Wilson’s nickname**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Wait...two of my friends are engaged now. Does that mean I’m an...adult???**

**Sharon Carter to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Afraid so**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: darthvaderno.gif**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Also wow that was the most English thing you’ve ever said**

**Sharon Carter to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Need I remind you that my aunt is English and I’ve been spending a lot of time with her?**

**Valkyrie Johnson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I enjoyed the Instagrams. Tell your aunt she’s still got it**

**Wanda Maximoff to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I second that**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Thirded**

**Sharon Carter to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Aaaaand I’m logging off**

“Okay, listen up!” Laura shouts, and the TV goes silent, drawing everyone’s attention to her. “So Tony finally officially confirmed that he’s hosting a get-together for New Year’s at the tower, is that what we want to do or would you rather a quiet night in here?”

“Tony’s!” Lila, Cooper and Nathaniel all chorus at once, and Laura smirks.

“Is Dad gonna drink as much as he did last year?” Lila asks, innocently batting her eyelashes at Clint, who glares at her and prompts laughter all around the room.

“Tony’s willing to put us up in the Tower for the night, so there’ll be no need for anyone to drive,” Laura says, and grins wickedly at Clint as she adds, “So I’m sure the whiskey will be flowing.”

“I don’t know how I’ve stayed married to you for twenty-five years,” Clint grumbles, and Laura smiles and kisses him. The affection between them is so obvious that it makes Wanda’s heart  _ ache _ , desperately wishing she could have that with someone. With Vision, if she were to be entirely honest with herself.

In the night when she struggles to sleep, trying to ignore her phone going off with Natasha’s numerous texts and calls attempting to reforge a connection between them and make her way back into the group with Steve in tow - despite the conversation having been had over a grainy Skype connection that a real apology has to be given before either of them are given anything even vaguely approaching forgiveness - she thinks about him. Looking back on three years of friendship, from the first night she stumbled back to her room after drinking alone and found that she’d left her keys in the student union bar, and was tipsy enough to strike up a conversation with the undeniably handsome boy sitting alone outside his room, exiled to make way for a roommate’s girlfriend. When she looks back on that, she can remember finding him so attractive in the moment, but being too shy to invite him into her room when the RA eventually arrived with her spare key and a ten-minute lecture about responsibility.

What happened to that? The first spark, the first desire, wanting to kiss him and maybe go further. She was still in the mourning period for her first long-term relationship, looking to replace Martha, and by all rights Vision would’ve been a perfect fit. But somehow they just became friends. She repressed her feelings further with every realisation of how genuinely kind he was - and is - and every moment they spent together. He became a part of her life so quickly, the two of them joined at the hip, he helped her find an apartment to move into and carried boxes up and down stairs and spent the first night there with her so she wouldn’t struggle to sleep in unfamiliar quiet.

Being in love with him certainly hasn’t happened in the space of the two weeks they’ve been in her home. It wasn’t seeing him get along with her family that did it. It wasn’t pretending to date him. Being in love with him as been there for a long time, dormant at the back of her mind, and it’s kissing him that’s brought it rushing to the surface, and now she has to address it. If it was just a crush, it would be a little easier to shake off and get over him, bring them back down to the level of just friends once Christmas is over.

But it’s not just a crush. It’s love. Complicated, infuriating, heartbreaking love. She’s in too deep to get out now, sharing her life with him in a way that to him is completely platonic, but to her is shadowed with the yearning for something more. To call him hers, and to be his.

“I’ve told Tony we’ll need five bedrooms,” Laura says, bringing Wanda’s attention back to the moment, out of her own head. “One for me and your father, one for Lila and Cassie, one each for Cooper and Nathaniel and one for Wanda and Vision. Any objections?”

“Can you tell Tony to not have FRIDAY blast music into my room first thing in the morning this year?” Nathaniel asks grumpily, and Wanda giggles at the memory of the previous year, her brother storming out of his room yelling while some song from the eighties played at full volume over the speakers into his room.

“I can, but I can’t promise your godfather will listen,” Laura says, and Nathaniel looks mutinous.

Stretching out, joints audibly cracking, Clint stands up and surveys the room before he says, “I’m gonna pop to the shops, pick up some food and some wine to take to the tower. Anyone want to come with or just want a ride to the centre?”

“I’ll take a ride,” Cooper says, and after a tug on her hand from Cassie Lila also stands up. As fast as the room initially filled with Wanda’s family, they all disappear again, Nathaniel running upstairs to his room and Laura wrapping herself in coat and scarf to go outside, a spot of green in the white landscape of snow.

“Are you okay?” Wanda asks softly, curling up to Vision and laying a hand on his arm, refusing to put off by the heavy book in his lap that he’s pretending to be completely absorbed. She can tell he’s pretending by the flush creeping up his neck, and the way his eyes flicker towards her before he drags his attention back to the dense black and white text. “Vizh? Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know,” he says, closing his book over, and turns to look at her, a sheen of sadness veiling his eyes. “I just...it feels a little strange. Knowing Jane and Thor are engaged. They’re going to start planning their wedding soon. Clearly, they want to be with each other for the rest of their lives.”

“And that’s making you sad?” she asks gently, and he gives the minutest of nods. “Why?”

“I...I don’t know,” he says, and she stays silent at his side, patient, reaching for his hand and lacing their fingers together, squeezing reassuringly. “It...it just reminds me that I’m the only one in our group of friends who’s truly never been in love.”

“ _ Vizh _ .” She moves closer, holds his hand tighter and lifts a hand to turn his head to look into his eyes. “That’s not a character flaw! You just haven’t met the right person yet. And look at the rest of us - with the exception of Jane and Thor, we’ve all been in love and lost that person.”

“It’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all,” he says miserably, and she shakes her head at him.

“Not true, it’s better to keep your heart unbroken rather than have three break-ups in four months,” she says, and kisses his cheek. “Someone is gonna come along one day, and you won’t be able to believe how much you love them. And they’ll love you too, and you’ll fit together perfectly, and that will be your happy ending.”

“There’s a happy ending out there for you too,” he says, and smiles at her, and she almost lets herself say that she wants him to be her happy ending, that there’s nothing in the world she wants more than for him to return his feelings.

“You are gonna make some lucky guy or girl so happy one day,” she promises him, ignoring how it hurts to tell him that, to think about him with someone else. “And I better be your first child’s godmother.”

“I promise,” he says, and gives her a grin that makes her smile back, thinking he’s left the sadness behind. “By the way, Laura’s been standing there watching us through the window the whole time we’ve been talking.”

Glancing subtly out of the window, Wanda lets out a breath of a laugh when she sees Laura standing in the centre of the fenced off grassy area usually occupied by the chickens, shovel in hand and not even attempting to disguise that she’s staring. “Wanna give her a little show?” she asks, affecting her most seductive tone, and leans in to press her lips to Vision’s without an answer. The immediate response and his arms winding around her is affirmation enough.

He pulls her in, and she doesn’t try to resist, straddling his lap and melting into every kiss, sliding her fingers into his hair and tugging, thrilling at the groan he lets out against her lips. He intensifies the kiss first, his tongue in her mouth, and his hands sliding down her back low enough to be indecent. If she moved her hips a certain way, she might know what his hands feel like on her ass, and the slightest movement against him makes him groan again, clutching her tighter and kissing her a little more aggressively. Not that she can call it kissing - it’s making out, the way she’s wanted him to kiss her, thought about a little too hard in the middle of the night, and she’s kissing him back.

“You’re such a good kisser,” she gasps when they have to separate for air, and his face is flushed and his lips swollen, and the sight sends arousal spiking through her, making her ache.

“Really?” he murmurs, and she nods at him, leaning in and past his lips to press her lips to his neck, tugging at the collar of his sweater to get it out of her way. “ _ Oh _ .”

“Does that feel good?” she whispers, running purely on instinct, all thoughts of keeping her feelings for him under wraps flying away with how good it feels to be pressed against him, to see his eyes dark with desire and hear his breathing going shallow as she moves down his neck slowly, kissing every inch of skin she can reach.

His gasp when she reaches the hollow of his neck turns into a moan when she kisses there, an actual moan that seems like music to her ears and turns her on even more, and she presses her hips into him, feeling him hard against her thigh and really not caring one bit. In fact, entertaining the thought of grinding against him, proving to him that it doesn’t matter to her.

“Wanda...” His breath of her name distracts her, makes her look back up into his eyes, and at the sight of his flushed face, his pupils blown wide and dark, she kisses him again, groaning into his mouth as her rushed movement causes his hands to slide down her back, and he doesn’t snatch his hands away. He curves them over her ass, squeezing slightly, and she gasps against his mouth, pressing herself harder against him, losing herself in the tidal wave of desire.

“Excuse me!” The shout makes her reel backwards, out of Vision’s lap, and she blushes when she sees Laura standing in the doorway into the front room, one eyebrow arched at them. “I don’t want to stand in the way of young love, but I would really rather no sex was had on my couch, thank  _ you _ .”

“My sincerest apologies, Mrs Barton,” Vision says, and Wanda can’t even look at him, his voice rough and his breathing heavy, and she blushes even more vividly when she sees him subtly inch his book back over his lap, hiding his erection. The erection  _ she _ caused.

“Don’t worry, I remember what it was like to be young and in love,” Laura says, and winks at Wanda, rendering her completely speechless with embarrassment. “But just keep it to your room, okay?”

“Right!” Wanda finally squeaks out, and flees the awkwardness, up the stairs and into her room, slamming the door and leaning against it, trying to steady her breathing.

So, that happened. If she’s entirely honest with herself, there have been people she’s had sex with that she hasn’t kissed that passionately.

And all she wants is to have sex with Vision. Twice she’s felt his hard-on pressed against her, and this time there’s no doubt that it was because of her. Giving her plenty of material to fantasise about, to think about his hands on her ass pulling her against him, guiding her to grind into him, think about her having her lips on his neck and hearing the broken way he breathes her name.

She springs away from the door at a neck, trying to compose herself as she says, “Come in!” and rushes to sit at her desk, picking up the nearest book and flicking to a random page, trying to look busy.

“I’m so sorry,” Vision says almost as soon as he’s closed the door behind him with a muffled click, and she can’t meet his eyes, not without thinking about the way he moaned when she kissed his neck. “I...I got carried away. I didn’t mean to...to subject you to that.”

“We both did,” she mumbles, too nervous to look at him. “It’s fine. It’s natural to, um...to get turned on doing that.” With a weak attempt at humour to hide how awkward it is between them, she says, too brightly, “At least Laura will definitely believe we’re actually dating.”

Vision doesn’t answer her, and she kicks herself for trying to be funny. It’s not the time. “Wanda?” She looks up at him, watches his throat work in the silence before he finally says, “You’re a good kisser. Really good. Great, actually.”

“Thank you,” she says sweetly, and he gives her a shy shadow of a smile. “You are too.”

The barrier between them in her bed is higher that night, and wider, keeping them apart. Just in case she does something stupid like roll into his arms and kiss him and beg him not to let her go ever, to let him be her happy ending. Her dreams are intertwined with him, the way he kissed her like he wanted to, the way he felt, and she wakes up with her heart pounding and her entire body too hot, hopelessly turned on.

It’s not enough to be helplessly in love with her best friend. She just  _ has _ to desperately want to fuck him too. And she’s not sure which is less likely to happen outside of her wildest dreams.

* * *

Everything is burning. The walls, the floor, the ceiling. Blood-red skies, flames crawling like clouds. Screaming everywhere.

Mama says they’ll be safe. She says they just have to stay down. Listen for the bombs. Be ready to run.

They did it all right. Mama is smiling when Papa kisses her cheek, both of them laughing at her singing the folk song they like. But the bomb whistles so faintly that they don’t hear. And everything turns black.

When colour comes back, with ringing in her ears and a dull ache through her whole body, piercing in her back and her left arm and her right ankle, she’s pinned beneath a table. Agonisingly slowly, she wriggles herself out.

Half the building is gone. Obliterated. Carpet just falling away into nothingness. The wail of sirens in the distance. They’re going to be rescued. It’ll be okay.

She grabs Pietro’s hand to tell him. He’s cool to the touch. His skin so pale every vein shows through. Frozen in his final moments, terror in his eyes.

Her scream could wake the dead as agony laces through her, the pain of a soul torn in two. Tears run thick and fast when she staggers away from her brother’s dead body, only to turn around and see her parents gone too, limp.

The ceiling collapses on top of her, silencing her screaming.

“ _ Wanda _ !”

She jerks upright clothed in a cold sweat, shaking, and Vision is staring at her, awoken by her tossing and turning. The blankets are entirely off the bed, piled on the floor, the barrier he erected between them gone. One look into Vision’s eyes, so filled with concern, the slightest brush of his hand against her arm, and she loses it, sobbing into her hands. Losing her breath, the walls closing in around her. She’s buried in rubble again, the way she was the day her family died, it’s crushing the breath out of her and she wants to give in, succumb to the darkness, be with her family.

Vision’s gaze is on hers, the blue of his eyes grounding her, and he’s talking so softly, saying, “You’re in your room, Wanda. We’re at Clint and Laura’s farmhouse. You’re sitting in bed. You’re safe. Nothing here can hurt you.” He reaches out, then hesitates, not touching her. “I need you to breathe with me, okay, can you do that? Just breathe.” He exaggerates his breathing loudly, until she starts to follow his rhythm, and some of the tight pain in her chest eases. “Good, that’s really good, Wanda. Keep breathing. Do you want to move?”

She nods, and like a shot he’s out of bed, coaxing her arms into one of his hoodies, zipping it for her when her trembling fingers prove ineffective, and guiding her to tiptoe down the stairs in the dark, letting her clutch at him to stay grounded, when every slightly high-pitched creak sounds like the whistle of a bomb. Cold hits her when he opens the door, shocking her back into reality a little more, and he sits down on the porch steps, waiting patiently as she sits down next to him.

Her head falls naturally onto his shoulder, and she nudges him for his arm to go around her, keeping her warm. Making her safe. “Thank you,” she says, and her voice is small and scared, but he gives her an encouraging smile.

“Nightmare?” he asks, and she nods, cuddling up to him, so he can make her safe. “I thought you weren’t getting them as often.”

“I’m not, but they’re bad when they do hit,” she says, then lets out a mocking laugh. “Obviously. I saw my family die.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” he says firmly. “It was a civil war. The rebels throwing bombs at apartment buildings were despicable, evil people. You didn’t deserve that suffering.”

“I had six years with my family,” she says softly. “I know they loved me. Some people don’t even have that.”

He kisses her temple, holding her close, and lets out a long, harsh sigh that ruffles her hair. “You never talk about it,” he says, and she turns her face into his shoulder. “But I’ve seen you have these attacks before. Maybe...maybe it would be better to talk.”

“There’s not much to talk about,” she says. “Bomb hit. Apartment building blown up. I survived. They didn’t.” Looking up at him, his eyes very blue even in the pre-dawn gloom, she says, “I’m more interested in your story.”

“You know everything there is to know,” he says with a slight shrug, so resigned that she wants to cry for him. “I was found abandoned outside a hospital. No possessions, no name, nothing to show anyone where I came from. Grew up in the system in England until I earned myself enough money to be able to move here and never look back.”

“Maybe you should,” she says quietly. “I can see how it’s hurt you, not having a family.”

“There’s no point looking back,” he says dully. “Whoever they were, my parents abandoned me. They didn’t want me. I’m not going to put any effort into finding them to let them break my heart. I might not have much of a past, but I have a future.”

“Don’t you ever want to have a family?” she asks. “Someone who loves you? Who cares where you are every second and wants to hear about your day and protects you?”

“I have you,” he says, and smiles at her. “You’re my family. I don’t need anyone else.” Looking out at the lightening sky, he says, “We’re awake now. Shall we make breakfast for your family?"

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to win Laura’s heart,” she teases, and he helps her to her feet and back inside.

Cooking together feels so blissfully domestic, a perfect start to New Year’s Eve, with music softly playing from the radio. They move around each other like it’s dancing, the way they did on Christmas Eve in the candlelight, and each time he passes her he drops a kiss on the top of her head, making a pleased blush rise in her cheeks.

The moment Lila gets downstairs, she’s making herself an orange juice, pouring a generous measure of champagne into her glass and saying, “What? It’s New Year’s!” when Wanda arches an eyebrow at her.

“I know,” Wanda says. “So make me and Vizh one too.” Returning Lila’s wicked grin, she leans into Vision’s side while he carefully flips pancakes, the dread of the night fading away in excited anticipation of the night ahead.

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: How early is too early to start drinking?**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Darling you are coming to the wrong person I’ve already done a round of Never Have I Ever with my cousins**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Oh if you’ve already started drinking then it’s fine!**

**Jane Foster to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Thor and his father are already in their expensive Norwegian drink**

**Victor Shade to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Wanda and I are drinking Buck’s Fizz with her sister**

**Sharon Carter to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Peggy and Angie are taking me and Maria out for lunch and paying for the wine**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: DRUNK SQUAD HECK YEAH**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Wish we were all together for new year though**

**Wanda Maximoff to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Maybe next year!**

The day passes by so slowly, the clock seeming to tick backwards. Wanda reads her way through two more of the books she got for Christmas, finishes making her notes on  _ Macbeth _ , emails her thesis supervisor and checks the rota for work in the first few weeks of the new semester, and it’s still only one o’clock. They all pick listlessly at lunch, knowing Tony is providing a buffet for this smaller party of friends, and Wanda goes to get ready immediately, just to have something to do.

Vision slides her door open just as she slides her dress over her head, and she tugs it down smiling at him. “Beautiful,” he says softly, and she blushes beneath her make-up. “You look stunning in red, have I ever told you that?”

“I’ve been told it’s my colour,” she says, and he crosses the room to stand behind her. In the mirror, they look like a couple, and his smile is so touchingly proud, and she closes her eyes and breathes in when he drops a kiss on the top of her head, trying to remember this moment. How happy she is.

It’s only a few days before they return to their separate apartments in Manhattan. They’ll pack their cases, put them in the back of Vision’s car, and drive back into reality. She won’t be able to lean over and kiss him anymore. It’ll be time to forget the feeling of his lips on hers, the knowledge of his arousal being because of her, time to get over him. If she thinks about it too hard, she’s going to start crying. Getting over anyone has never been her strong suit, never mind getting over being in love with her best friend. Her thoughts are a symphony of if only and maybe, blind hope falling away from her heart. If he returned her feelings, surely he would’ve said so by now. And she can’t tell him how she feels. Not when she knows that he’ll look at her with pity in his eyes and tell her he doesn’t and will never return her love.

She wears his necklace out to his car, folds herself into the front seat and turns the music up loud enough to drown her thoughts out. Laughs at Lila attempting to sing along to  _ Despacito _ in terrible Spanish and an accent closer to Italian. Doesn’t feel lonely when Cassie giggles and leans across the seat to kiss Lila. Keeps her sadness to herself when  _ Shape of You _ plays over the radio and she watches them lip-sync the words to each other in the rearview mirror.

The bottle of wine at dinner gets passed around the table, and she refills every time, feeling hollow. Like she’s ready to break apart. Something about the new year, everyone making outlandish promises to better themselves, to tell that person that one thing they never said, to strive for perfection, makes her so sad, down to her bones. “What’s your new year’s resolution, Wanda?” Bruce asks, smiling at her from over his glasses, and she takes a sip of wine before she can blurt out that she wants to tell Vision how she feels.

“Graduate,” she says, to raucous laughter from Clint’s friends, him loudest of all.

“What about you, Vision?” Tony prompts, waving the neck of his champagne bottle at Vision, and Wanda tenses up when Vision shifts in his seat and brushes against her side.

“Be brave,” he says. “Not be so scared of rejection. Tell people what I’m thinking.” Looking at her, he smiles and adds, “And graduate,” to a burst of laughter around the table. 

The evening quickly deteriorates after the whiskey is brought out. Wanda takes a sip of Clint’s glass, the burning at the back of her throat unpleasant enough that she goes  back to sharing from the pitcher of Buck’s Fizz with Lila. “Ten bucks says Hunter has the worst hangover tomorrow,” Lila says cheerfully.

“I don’t know, I think Clint is gonna be more of a mess,” Wanda says, just as her adopted father attempts an overly-ambitious dance move and winds up on the floor in a tangled mess of limbs, Tony and Hunter guffawing at him while Laura shakes her head fondly.

“So, will you have the lovely Vision’s tongue down your throat at midnight?” Lila asks, and Wanda winces.

“Ew, Lila, don’t phrase it like that!” she squeals, shuddering. But her traitorous eyes still stray to Vision, deep in obviously earnest and intellectual conversation with Bruce in the corner furthest from the speaker blasting out eighties music.

“We like him,” Lila says, drawing Wanda’s attention back to her. “Nate and Coop and I. Cass too. He’s good for you.”

“Well, Cassie is good for you,” Wanda says, and they both look briefly at Cassie dancing with her stepmother, screaming along to the song.

“I know Cass is good for me, I don’t think you quite realise how good Vision is for you,” Lila says, and melancholy overwhelms Wanda. “He makes you so happy. You’re the best version of you I’ve ever seen when you’re with him.” Her eyes on Wanda are probing and curious, and her next question makes Wanda’s heart stop. “Do you love him?”

“Yes.” She doesn’t even have to think about the answer - she knows it. She loves Vision with everything she has.

“Does he know?”

“No.” Because he doesn’t feel the same way. He  _ can’t _ . She’s damaged goods, and he’s perfect.

“You should tell him,” Lila says, taking another sip of her drink.

“It’s not that simple,” Wanda says sadly, and Lila just stares her down.

“Love doesn’t have to be complicated, you’re just making it that way because you’re scared,” she says, and Wanda looks away, unnerved by how uncannily her sister sees her. “You love him. And he loves you, I can tell. No point in wasting time when you can just be happy.”

“But he might not feel the same way,” she says, and Lila scoffs.

“You can’t fake the way he looks at you,” she says, and Wanda looks up to Vision walking towards them, offering her his hand.

“May I have this dance?” he asks, and she smiles up into his eyes, sets her glass down at Lila’s encouraging elbow to her side and follows him onto the dance floor.

As midnight creeps closer, promising fresh starts and another chance at happiness and a world painted in the gloss of the new, Vision pulls her close at the edge of the dance floor closest to the stairs, lit only by warm flickering candlelight, and presses a gentle kiss to her mouth in front of everyone, tucking her hair behind her ear in a gesture so tender that she wants to cry. “You look gorgeous tonight,” he whispers, and the words seem to glow in the air between them, the champagne making Wanda emotional enough that her eyes go misty at his smile.

“There’s no one I’d rather be here with,” she promises, so quietly, and he starts to dance with her, hand curved over her waist, her head resting on his shoulder and her eyes prickling with tears.  _ Perfect _ is playing out over the speakers, couples all around spinning to the music, and she can hear Vision humming very quietly along, and everything hurts.

When the song changes, something with a far more sensual beat, Wanda pulls him close, hoping to shed her sadness with the swaying of her hips against his, smirking up at him. “Remember the frat party?” she asks quietly.

“I thought you didn’t,” he says, and she sees the spark of hope in his eyes.

“You’re a good dancer when you stop being shy,” she says, and he gives her a small, bashful grin. “What are you afraid of?”

“I don’t know,” he says with a slight shrug. “People looking and knowing that I don’t know what I’m doing. Being out of my depth on the dance floor. Being laughed at.”

“Why would people laugh?” she asks him, shifting in his arms and lifting a hand to cup his cheek.

He looks away for a moment, then turns back, and he sounds so sad when he says, “Because I’m not sexy.”

“Of course you are!” she exclaims, and he shakes his head.

“To who?”

“Me.” And she pulls him down to kiss him on some wild impulse, intense from the moment their lips touch, and he grabs at her to bring their bodies closer, and when she takes his lower lip between hers and pulls she’s rewarded with a broken moan thankfully muffled by her tongue in his mouth a second later. Her mind seems to have melted, her breathing growing heavier, and an ache flares up like fire between her thighs, desperate for him.

Vision breaks the kiss first at a roar of approval from Tony and Scott at the next song playing, and they’re both breathing heavily, and he’s still clutching at her tight enough that she can tip her forehead against his, give him a slight smile. “We should...probably stop,” he says between breaths that make his chest heave against hers, and his voice is rough, and he sounds so sexy that she can actually feel herself getting wetter for him.

“I don’t want to stop,” she whispers, the music meaning the only person who can hear her is him.

“Neither do I,” he says, and she grabs his hand and drags him through the door to the staircase, slamming him back against the wall and kissing him, tracing her tongue over his lower lip to hear him groan. “Where’s our room?” he murmurs against her lips, and she pulls back grinning, running up the stairs with him just behind her.

She gets him pinned up against the door to her room, outside in the corridor, and kisses him again, pressing herself up against him. “You are such a good kisser,” she whispers, and it’s almost purring, and he blinks down at her, pupils blown wide and dark with arousal. “And you’re  _ so hot _ .”

He blushes, and she drops another light kiss on his lips before moving to his neck, trembling fingers fumbling his top three buttons open to kiss at the spot that makes him moan, his grip on her tighten enough to hurt a little, thrilling her. A, “ _ Wanda _ ,” falls from his lips when she bites, and she smirks into his skin.

Kissing a path up his neck, thrilling at his shallow breathing, she brushes her lips against the delicate shell of his ear and whispers, “You turn me  _ on _ .” Reaching behind him, she jerks the door open and backs him into their bedroom, kicking the door shut and tugging at his blazer. “ _ Off _ .”

With his blazer gone, she gets a far better view of his muscles, his white shirt clinging in all the right places, and smirks at him. “ _ Perfect _ ,” she whispers, and he smiles at her, and she reaches out and pulls him in by his tie to kiss him once again. In four days, they’re going back to Manhattan. In four days, she has to forget how his kisses feel and get over him. So, tonight, she’s going to take every inch of him she can get.

Backing herself up against the door, she grabs his hand and pulls them down her back to her ass, gasping out in relief when he grabs her and pulls her hips into his. He’s  _ hard _ , she can feel it, and there’s no boundaries tonight, no need to worry about being seen. They’re alone, and he’s still kissing her, and she traps his thigh between her legs and grinds into him, the kiss breaking when she moans out, “Shit,  _ Vizh _ .”

“God,  _ Wanda _ ,” he groans out in reply, and she jumps up to tangle her legs around his waist, kissing him as he carries her to the bed, pushing aside their neatly-folded pyjamas and tipping her back onto the mattress.

“Kiss my neck,” she says, and he does it immediately, making her eyes roll back in her head and her hips arch into him. He somehow instinctively knows the perfect spot to turn her on, kissing and kissing until she’s dizzy, and moans out, “ _ More _ ,” when his teeth graze over her skin. Switching sides, he goes straight back to the same intensity, and she grabs at him, her nails scraping over the stiff material of his shirt. She skates her hands down his back, grabs at his ass and squeezes, and he gasps into the crook of her neck.

“You feel good,” he breathes, and groans into her neck when she rolls her hips up into his, thrilling at the obvious shape of his erection pressing into her. “ _ Amazing _ .” He kisses down her neck, over the hollows of her collarbones and to the neckline of her dress, lips so soft on the tops of her breasts, and she reaches trembling hands between them to unbutton his shirt and unzip his pants.

“Get those off,” she says, and he rolls off her to do so, and she actually gasps when his shirt comes off, staring at him, because she can touch, she’s  _ allowed _ . He’s down to just his underwear, and she pushes him onto his back and straddles him, pulling her dress up over her head and tossing it aside.

Vision is gazing up at her so tenderly, lust in his eyes but also wonder, running his hands up her sides and down her arms to tangle their fingers together. “You are so beautiful,” he whispers, like he can’t believe it, and she leans down to kiss him, grinding onto him as his tongue brushes hers, lost in desire.

“Oh  _ fuck _ ,” she moans at a particular hard jerk of his hips up into hers, and kisses his mouth once more before moving to his neck, progressing slowly down his chest until she reaches his abs, running her hands over them and following the same path with her mouth. Vision is shakily moaning her name above her, thrilling her with how obviously wrecked he is, and she looks up to see him watching her.

“What are you  _ doing _ ?” he asks incredulously when her fingertips brush against the waistband of his underwear, and she jerks upright, sliding back up his body and giving him a soft smile.

“Well I was gonna blow you,” she says, and his eyes go wide with shock. “But you’re right.”

“I am?”

She nods, and kisses him before she whispers, “I want you inside me.” He follows her when she sits up, propping himself up on his elbows, and she leans over and dives into the nightstand drawers for a condom, saying a silent thank you to Tony for making that kind of allowance for her bringing her boyfriend. “I want  _ you _ .”

“I want you too,” he breathes, and she drops the condom next to them and leans in to kiss him, his lips intoxicating, threading her fingers into his hair and tugging to bring their mouths closer together. Reaching down to intertwine their fingers, she lifts his hand to the clasp of her bra, and gives him an encouraging nod.

Pounding on the door surprises her so much that she shrieks, Vision’s hands flying away from her, and it’s Nathaniel that shouts through the wood. “Tony wants to start the countdown soon, you guys better come down! Or don’t! Whatever! I’ll tell Dad you were asleep!”

His footsteps leave her door, the creaking of the staircase signalling him leaving, and Wanda turns back to Vision, trying to get back into the energy of the moment, giving him a seductive smile. “Where were we?” she breathes.

“We should stop,” he says, and her heart sinks, disappointment crashing in her chest. “We...we’ve gotten so carried away. I can’t do this.”

“ _ Oh _ ,” she says, and she sounds so broken, miserable, and she’s still straddling him and now she feels silly. Some child, playing at being in love with someone who feels nothing but lust for her. Even then, not enough to actually go through with it and have sex with her. “Cool. Great. I’ll just go then.”

“No!” Vision protests, and grabs her wrist to stop her climbing off him, carefully lifting himself into a sitting position, keeping her in his lap. He’s still hard, she can feel his erection pressed against her thigh, and she’s ridiculously turned on, and it feels ridiculous that they’ve stopped. “I want to, Wanda,  _ God _ I want to, but I can’t. It’s not right.”

“I’m not drunk,” she promises. “I know what I’m doing. I know what I want.”

“Not, it’s me, it’s all me,” he says, and he sounds so embarrassed all of a sudden, and she can only blink at him. “There’s...there’s something you don’t know.”

“Do you have some sexual hang-up?” she asks, and he blushes, and she knows she’s gotten it right. “Did someone tell you you have a tiny dick or something? Because I can tell you right now that that’s _not_ _true_.”

“Oh, um...thank you,” he says, and she giggles, some of the tension of the moment dissolving. “No, I...” He takes a deep breath, and obviously makes an effort to look up into her eyes and say, “Wanda, I’m a virgin.”

“ _ What _ ?!” His blush grows darker, and he ducks his head bashfully while she stares at him slack-jawed. “ _ How _ ? I mean,  _ look _ at you!”

“That’s not to say that there haven’t been people who’ve  _ tried _ ,” Vision mumbles, refusing to meet her eyes. “Several people have...made it clear that they would be interested. I didn’t want to.”

“Why not?” she asks, and she’s softened her voice, trying to be gentle and understanding with her friend, even though she really wants to fuck him until she forgets her own name.

“I was never in love with anyone,” he says, and he sounds a little sad. “Call me old-fashioned, but I didn’t want to just throw my virginity away on anyone. I wanted it to be a little bit special. I wanted to love them.”

“That’s not old-fashioned,” she soothes him, and he finally looks up at her. “It’s sweet, Vizh.” Awkwardly shifting in his lap, she says, “I’m really sorry that I’ve put you in this position, then. I’ll go.”

“Wanda, no one else has gotten this close,” he says, and she tries not to wince at the way he makes it sound. “I mean...that’s not how I wanted to phrase it. I...I haven’t let my walls down this far for anyone else.”

“So?” she asks. “You said it yourself, we got carried away.”

“Shit, okay.” She blinks at him, amazed to hear one of the rare times he swears, and he’s gazing at her straight on, without breaking eye contact. “Wanda, I am a virgin by choice because I don’t want to have sex with anyone until I love them and they love me back. And, while tonight is not the appropriate time for us to have sex, you are the one I want to take my virginity. Because I’m in love with you.”

“ _ Oh _ ,” she breathes, the only word she can really summon to say. Vision is gazing at her, so earnest and sweet, and he’s a virgin, and that’s still making her head spin because he’s kind and gentle and sexy and she can’t comprehend why anyone wouldn’t want to have sex with him, and he’s a virgin because he’s never been in love. And he loves  _ her _ .

“So?” he asks, bringing her out of her spiralling thoughts, and he looks so  _ scared _ . “What do you think?”

“I’m in love with you too.” The words flow out of her as naturally as breathing, and when she’s said them she grins, she’s so relieved. “I love you!” she says, needing to say it again, to feel the way her mouth shapes the words, to watch the smile slowly spread across Vision’s face.

“I love you too,” he says, and she leans in to kiss him, slow and tender and sweet, and for some absurd reason tears sting her eyes, and one spills over before she can blink them away. Vision lifts a hand to brush it away, smiling at her, and whispers, “Please don’t cry.”

“I...I’m just so happy,” she says, and he grins. “Vizh, I’ve been in love with you for so long and I didn’t even  _ realise _ , I only knew these past few weeks pretending to be your girlfriend.”

“I only realised when you started dating Natasha,” he says. “Remember Halloween? We were dancing together, and there was this one crazy moment when I thought you were going to kiss me, and then you asked me to get a drink and by the time I came back from the bar you were kissing Natasha. It broke my heart, and I knew.”

“ _ Vision _ ,” she breathes, and kisses him once again, so gentle. “I’m so sorry, babe, I am. I was so deep in denial because I was terrified of losing you. I lose everyone.”

“I’ve been here three years,” he says, and she smiles at him. “I’m not planning on ever leaving.”

“Oh, I love you so much,” she says, and falls into a kiss, finally unwinding herself from around him so they’re kneeling together, kissing softly.

The swish and crackle of a firework overhead makes her pull away, the clock on her nightstand flashing at them that it’s midnight. A new year. “Good thing I’ve already kept my resolution,” Vision says, and she smiles at him.

“My brave boyfriend,” she teases gently, and he grins giddily at her. “Happy New Year, Vizh. I love you.”

“Happy New Year.” Another kiss, and a breath of, “I love you too.”

“I love you.” She giggles at herself, blushing slightly. “I don’t wanna stop saying it!”

“Then don’t,” he whispers. And they lie in the bed, whispering ‘I love you’ back and forth, until she falls asleep with his smile and the sound of his voice at the front of her mind.

* * *

Waking up to dawn striping the walls of her bedroom blue-grey, Wanda smiles when she looks up into Vision’s already open eyes. “How long have you been watching?” she asks, stretching out in his arms, and he grins bashfully. 

“Not long,” he says. “You’re just so beautiful, I couldn’t look away.”

Slapping at him, she teases, “Charmer.”

“Worked on you, obviously,” he says, and leans down to kiss her, and she welcomes his mouth on hers, forgetting any kind of concern about morning breath she’d normally feel with a new relationship. Because he’s not new. He’s been there a long time, always at her side. He’s loved her, and she’s loved him.

Despite knowing that they won’t have sex, getting turned on kissing him is inevitable, especially when he wraps his arms around her and pulls her on top of him, skin to skin except for their very minimal clothing, and she grins against his mouth. Kisses him a little harder, more intense, and he takes her kiss and gives it back in his.

“Morning, kiddo, breakfast is ready downstairs and- what the  _ hell _ is going on here?!” Jerking away from Vision so violently she slides off him, Wanda grits her teeth at Clint in the doorway, gaze swivelling between her and Vision as he rapidly turns so red it looks a little purple. “Where are your  _ clothes _ ?!”

“On the floor,” she says, and Vision blushes, and she takes his hand protectively. “Close the door, Clint. We’ll be down for breakfast in ten minutes.”

“We’ll be having serious words, young lady!” Clint snaps, and slams the door demonstratively loudly.

Vision lets out a drawn-out groan, burying his head in his hands, and Wanda swallows her giggles and kisses his shoulder. “Your  _ father _ saw us  _ kissing _ ,” he mumbles.

“Imagine if he’d walked in last night,” she teases, and his blush grows even darker. “I’m gonna take a very quick shower, babe. Wait for me.”

“Wanda?” Pausing in grabbing her toiletries out of her backpack, folding her crumpled dress neatly, she looks up to see Vision avoiding her gaze. “What happened last night...was it...good? Before we stopped. Were you enjoying it?”

“Vizh, let’s put it this way,” she says, sashaying over to him and leaning down to bring their lips level. “If that’s the foreplay, the main event is gonna ruin me.” He blushes a vivid red, and she smirks and kisses him before disappearing into the bathroom.

Hair still wet, wearing his stolen sweater as a dress over dark red tights, she grabs Vision’s hand and drags him downstairs after her. Easier to rip off the bandaid and face her entire family at once, after Clint has no doubt told them what he caught her and Vision doing. And her family’s friends, most of whom are already awake despite the heroic amounts of alcohol they ingested, quietly eating the enormous breakfast waiting for them.

“Morning lovebirds!” Rhodey says, almost absurdly cheerful for the hour.

“Glad to see kids are still starting the new year with a bang!” Hunter says, smirking over his coffee, and Clint turns purple.

“I hope you understand that that was simply unacceptable, Vision,” he says, and Wanda moves protectively closer to Vision, seeing him so anxious and lost for words. “There should be absolutely no occasion when I have to see my daughter doing that.”

“I’m twenty-three, Clint, I have every right to sleep next to my boyfriend and kiss him good morning if I want to,” she snaps, clutching Vision’s hand.

“As if I’m going to believe all you did was sleep,” Clint scoffs, and Wanda bristles indignantly. “I’m shocked, frankly, Vision. I thought you were a gentleman. Not the type to do that to my daughter.”

“Mr. Barton, I...I have never seen your daughter naked!” Vision blurts out, then flushes, and Wanda stretches up to kiss his cheek reassuringly before turning the best glare in her arsenal on Clint.

“Vizh is a perfect gentleman, he hasn’t done anything to me  _ yet _ , and you have absolutely no right to speak to the man I love like that,” she says, and Clint has the grace to look ashamed. “I’m old enough to make my own decisions, and you have no place interfering in my love life anyway. Back off.”

Silence reigns for a moment, awkwardly tense, then Cassie looks up from her eggs and says, “Mr. Barton, I have also never seen your daughter naked. Not your  _ oldest _ daughter.” She winks at Lila, who chokes on her coffee laughing, and the tension is gone.

Wanda turns to Vision to find him gazing at her tenderly, and smiles. “What?” she asks, and he cups her cheek.

“You said you love me,” he says, and she beams up at him.

“Because I do,” she says, and lifts her head to brush a kiss to his mouth.

When Vision once again falls into conversation with Bruce, she turns to Tony, who grins at her. “So did you actually not have sex with him, or did you only say that to get Clint off your back?” he asks, and Wanda shakes her head at him.

“We didn’t,” she says. “We almost did, but he stopped it. We’re gonna wait.”

“Well, at least it got you to admit you love each other and stop that fake relationship ridiculousness,” Tony says, and Wanda chokes on her orange juice, the citrus stinging the roof of her mouth and making her eyes water. “Please, you thought I wouldn’t notice? I have a Masters degree.”

“In what, relationships?!” she snaps, and Tony grins. “Does Clint know?”

“Obviously not, or he’d be even more furious about catching you making out with him,” Tony says, shaking his head at a silent Clint picking at his food and looking mutinous. “Laura, on the other hand, was the one who pointed it out to me.”

“ _ Shit _ ,” Wanda sighs, glancing around the table at her family, all appearing to not even be looking at her and Vision. “So why didn’t you say something to us?”

“Because it was painfully obvious that you two were in love with each other, and you needed a push to realise,” he says, and she relaxes. Smiles. Leans into Vision’s side and sets her head on his shoulder.

“I love you,” she whispers, and he turns away from animated discussion to smile into her eyes.

“I love you too,” he says, and the kiss he gives her makes her feel whole again.

Completely certain, for the first time in her life, that the person she loves isn’t going to leave her.


	6. through the years we all will be together

**A/N:** Last chapter! Time for wrapping up of plot points and an inevitably fluffy ending because it's  _me_! Thank you for all the comments and reads over this holiday season. Hope everyone had a wonderful time, has a great new year's and is ready for 2018!

Chapter title from  _Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas_

* * *

**Jane Foster to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I've been back in Manhattan for one night and the jet lag is killing me**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Okay I'll be back in the city in an hour I'm bringing you coffee**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: YA BOY IS ON THE ROAD AGAIN**

**Jane Foster to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Oh no...**

**Sharon Carter to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Wine and catching up tonight? Doesn't have to go late if everyone's exhausted**

**Wanda Maximoff to Those idiots I talk sometimes: Sounds fun actually! We can have it at mine if you want, I left it pretty tidy before the holidays!**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Great, because my place is a tip and I could use some liquid courage to text Ian and ask him out**

**Sharon Carter to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Darce remember how Sam didn't know about that?**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: IAN? WHO IS IAN? WHY ARE YOU ASKING HIM OUT? DO YOU HAVE A BOY TOY I, YOUR BEST FRIEND, DON'T KNOW ABOUT?**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Sam you're not my best friend**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Dammit then whose best friend am I?**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Vision you're my best friend right?**

**Wanda Maximoff to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Nope, Vizh is mine**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Then I guess I am doomed to be alone forever**

**Valkyrie Johnson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I'll be your best friend!**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: I don't want your pity friendship**

"Wanda!" Looking up halfway through typing another message, Wanda smiles at Vision hovering in the doorway, all loose clothes for travelling and hair in his eyes and visibly softening when their eyes meet. "The car's packed up. We're ready to leave."

Tucking her phone into her pocket, she crosses the room to his side, smiling up into his eyes. "Back to reality," she says. "But you're still my boyfriend."

"And you're still my girlfriend," he replies easily, cupping her cheek and drawing her in for an infinitely sweet kiss. When the kiss breaks, just as sweet as it was the first time, his smile fades into fear and he quietly admits, "I spent most of the holidays dreading this moment. I didn't want to lose you."

"You won't," she promises, linking their hands together. "I'm your girlfriend, and I love you, and I'm not going anywhere."

"I love you too," he breathes, and she couldn't begin to count how many times they've said it since that magical moment at New Year's, how many times her heart has skipped a beat and her breath has caught and she's fallen even more deeply in love with him.

"Laura!" she shouts up the stairs, and footsteps thud along the landing, Laura running down the stairs and enveloping her in a hug before she's even said anything more.

"Don't stay away for so long next time, do you hear me?!" she says into Wanda's shoulder, her voice thick with emotion, and Wanda hugs her adopted mother back helplessly, a sudden lump in her throat. "And call more often. We miss you!"

"I promise," Wanda says, and Laura finally loosens her grip a little. "Thank you for having us here. We had a great time, didn't we, Vizh?"

"Honestly, Mrs Barton, it was the best Christmas I've ever had," Vision says, and Wanda beams at him. "I hope I'll be back here soon."

"We hope so too," Laura says, and watches after Vision when he walks out of the house to start the car. The moment the door slams behind him, she turns to Wanda with a stern look and says, "You hang onto him, okay? Don't even think about letting him go."

"I wasn't planning on it," Wanda says, and Laura still stares her down. " _What_ , Laura?"

"You didn't have to lie to us that he was your boyfriend," she says, and the elephant in the room is finally gone, one that's weighed at the back of Wanda's mind ever since Tony told her that Laura knew her relationship with Vision wasn't real.

"I'm glad I did," she says, and Laura smiles at her. "I wouldn't have realised how much I love him if I hadn't asked him here. And I only did  _that_  because I got dumped."

"Oh, sweetheart, you need to  _tell_  us these things!" Laura says, shaking her head fondly. "But you and Vision...that's official now, yes?"

"Yes," Wanda says, unable to help a giddy smile. "I love him and he loves me."

"I'll wait for the call asking permission for him to propose to you," Laura teases, and Wanda blushes immediately, momentarily speechless.

"Shouldn't you be expecting that from Lila and Cassie first?!" she exclaims, voice a little strangled. "We've barely been dating a week!"

"Sweetheart, when you've been married for twenty-five years like me, you'll be able to tell when two people are it for each other," Laura says, and Wanda blushes even brighter. "Besides, you've been dancing around each other for three years now. That's plenty long enough to start thinking about marriage."

"Clint's gonna take another three years to come around on me dating him," Wanda says with a roll of her eyes, and Laura just smiles.

"Ignore your father, he's a stubborn old man," she says, and Wanda giggles. "At the end of the day, no one's gonna say no to having a boy as sweet and considerate as Vision for a son-in-law."

"Oh my  _God_ , stop it!" Wanda protests, and Laura just gives her an innocent smile. "I'm leaving now. Did you give Lila this performance about Cassie when they left?"

"Wanda, I'll have you know that those matching necklaces those two have are engaged to be engaged jewellery because they think eighteen is too young for an official engagement," Laura says, and Wanda's eyes go wide staring at her adopted mother. "So, step it up. Coop's been on his phone a suspicious amount this holiday. I think he has someone back at college. You're falling behind."

"Good _bye_ , Laura, I'll let you know when we make it back to Manhattan in one piece!" Wanda says pointedly, and walks out of the house to Vision's car, throwing her purse into the backseat and settling into the warmth of his temperamental heating.

"What was she saying?" Vision asks, and she turns to him helplessly smiling at her boyfriend. "You were a while."

"Just telling me that she approves of us," she says, twining their fingers together. "And that I shouldn't let you go." Leaning across the gearshift and smiling into his eyes, she breathes, "And I won't," before she kisses him.

Vision pulls the car out of the driveway and Wanda twists in her seat for once last look at the farmhouse, melancholy weighing on her shoulders as they drive away. But they're going back to the life she's made for herself in Manhattan, school and work and her tiny apartment. And now, her boyfriend. Her best friend. The man she's been falling head over heels for every day since they met, and now she's allowed to kiss him whenever she wants.

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Um, quick question: can I bring Ian to drinks tonight?**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: See, he messaged me first to ask if I wanted to meet up, and I had to tell him I'm busy tonight**

**Darcy Lewis to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: And because he knows Sam and you guys sort of met him I thought maybe he could come as a plus one?**

**Valkyrie Johnson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Ooh if she's bringing Ian can I bring my girl?**

**Sharon Carter to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: So it's going well with Quill's friend?**

**Valkyrie Johnson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Veeeery well**

**Wanda Maximoff to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Bring plus ones, but remember my apartment is tiny and I'm only back in NY today, please don't expect a proper party!**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Ooh, can we order pizza? My mom is morally against take-away**

**Wanda Maximoff to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Well I'm not cooking for this many people**

**Sam Wilson to Those idiots I talk to sometimes: Pizza it is!**

"What are we going to tell them?" Wanda asks out loud, glancing at Vision concentrating on the road, busy with so many other people heading back into the city with the end of the magical two-week limbo of the holidays. "You know...about us?"

"Do you want to tell them?" he asks.

"I think so," she says, biting nervously at her lip. "I love you. I want to be with you in front of the whole world. But...I mean, I was so upset about Natasha and Steve. I don't want to now turn up a month after she dumped me and tell them I'm in love with someone else when I made them cut her out of their lives."

Stopping the car in the queue for a red light, Vision takes her hand, squeezing reassuringly. "This is a world away from what happened between you and Natasha," he says softly, and she looks away from him. "She told you that she was interested in Steve before you two got together. You think she might have been unfaithful to you. And she chose not to explain her feelings for someone else when she ended it. Both her and Steve deserved what they got."

Glancing up to check the light is still red, she leans over and kisses his cheek, lingering for a moment afterwards. "Thank you," she whispers, and he smiles at her.

"You didn't make them do it," he says. "They chose to. Because they're your friends, and when the time came to choose you're more important to them. And they are going to be so happy to see you happy after what Natasha put you through."

"Well, the last time I saw most of them I was crying behind the frat house, anything would be an improvement on that," she says, trying to be self-deprecating to ease the moment, but Vision just smiles and leans in to kiss her lips, so gently.

"You deserve happiness," he says.

"I have you," she says, pressing her forehead to his and closing her eyes, clinging to the contentment of the moment, breathing him in.

The light turns green, and the car moves forward, but Vision gives her hand one last squeeze before returning to concentrating on driving, and she smiles at him before leaning back into her seat. Watching the scenery rise from trees and suburbia to the skyscrapers of the city, she pulls her phone from her pocket and takes a deep breath before starting to text.

**To: Val**

**Can I use you as a guinea pig for something I'm planning to tell everyone tonight?**

**From: Val**

**Sure**

**To: Val**

**Do you promise not to tell anyone?**

**From: Val**

**Hun, if I can keep Thor planning to propose secret for six months I can keep your secret for less than six hours. Have a little faith**

**To: Val**

**Me and Vision are together**

**To: Val**

**Um...are you still there?**

**From: Val**

**SORRY I HAD TO RUN AROUND THE APARTMENT SCREAMING FOR TEN MINUTES**

**From: Val**

**GAMORA IS NOW EXTREMELY CONCERNED**

**From: Val**

**BUT I'M SO HAPPY I DON'T CARE**

**From: Val**

**LIKE REALLY TOGETHER? LIKE OFFICIALLY TOGETHER?**

**To: Val**

**We're boyfriend and girlfriend and we're in love. I'd say it's pretty official**

**From: Val**

**OH MY GOD HOW DID IT HAPPEN?!**

**To: Val**

**We nearly had sex on New Year's Eve, he stopped it, he told me he loves me and I said it back**

**From: Val**

**SORRY THAT WAS WORTH ANOTHER FIVE MINUTES OF SCREAMING**

**From: Val**

**HOLY SHIT**

**From: Val**

**YOU NEARLY HAD SEX?!**

**From: Val**

**HOW NEARLY?!**

**To: Val**

**Um, tmi?**

**From: Val**

**NOPE! SPILL IT MAXIMOFF!**

**To: Val**

**Fine. Nearly enough that we were both down to our underwear and he was about to take off my bra**

**From: Val**

**OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOD**

**From: Val**

**WANDA I AM SO HAPPY FOR YOU**

**From: Val**

**I HAVE GENUINELY NEVER BEEN THIS HAPPY FOR ANOTHER HUMAN BEING BEFORE**

**From: Val**

**HELL I DON'T THINK I'VE EVER BEEN THIS HAPPY FOR MYSELF BEFORE NEVER MIND ANYONE ELSE**

**To: Val**

**You don't think it's too soon for me to be with someone else? You know, after Nat?**

**From: Val**

**TOO SOON MY ASS, YOU'VE BEEN DISTRACTING YOURSELF FOR THREE YEARS WITH PPL YOU'RE TOO GOOD FOR WHEN TRUE LOVE WAS STARING YOU IN THE FACE**

**To: Val**

**I can only hope everyone else reacts this positively**

**From: Val**

**ARE YOU KIDDING? DARCY IS GOING TO ACTUALLY SCREAM**

"Val is happy for us," Wanda says lightly as Vision steers the car towards the Starbucks drive through, reeling off her usual order without even having to ask. "She thinks everyone else will be too."

"Of course they will," he says, giving the window attendant a charming smile when she hands their orders over. "If anyone isn't, then we cut them out of our lives too. They should all be glad to see you happy."

"You too, Vizh," she says, and he shakes his head. " _Yes_. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved."

"Well, you make me happy," he says, and she grins helplessly. "You make me feel loved."

"You do that for me," she says sweetly, and holds her tea carefully out of the way to lean over and kiss him.

He pulls his car to a stop in front of her building, and she reaches for him before he can climb out and start unpacking the trunk. "Stay," she says softly. "Don't go back to your place tonight. Everyone's coming over in a few hours anyway. You can use my shower, all your clothes are in your bag, and I have wine upstairs."

"You had me at 'stay'," he says, and she smiles into a kiss, his hand tucking her hair back behind her ear and cupping her cheek.

He carries her bags up the stairs for her, and she hits the switch for her heating immediately when they get into her apartment, shivering in the empty cold. "Jesus Christ it's freezing," she says, almost to herself, and Vision sets her bags down and immediately crosses to wrap his arms around her.

"Let me warm you up," he whispers, and she smiles flirtatiously at him, tilting her head up to kiss him, moving closer to him as his arms wind around her, pulling her against him.

Steering him further into the apartment, she pushes him down onto her couch, straddling his lap and kissing him more intensely, still memorising the way his mouth feels on hers. "Can I ask you something?" she asks when he breaks the kiss, and he nods. "How-  _oh_ ," she cuts herself off in a gasp when he starts kissing her neck. "How many people did you kiss before me?"

"Three," he says against her neck, the warmth of his breath on her skin making her shiver. "But just goodnight kisses after dates. Two of those. And Sam on Halloween because we were drunk and I was sad."

" _What_?!" Wanda squeaks out. "You've kissed  _Sam_?!"

" _You've_  kissed Sam," Vision points out. "And Darcy. And Val. And T'Challa."

"Touché," she says, and Vision grins and goes right back to kissing her neck, and she digs her fingers into his shoulders when his teeth scrape against her skin. "So you're just naturally this good at kissing?"

"I'm a good kisser?" he asks, and she cups his cheek to turn him to look at her.

"Incredible," she breathes, and kisses him again, losing herself in the way it feels to be close to him. It thrills her a little, knowing she's the first to kiss him like this. To show him passion. She's going to be the first to have sex with him.

"I..." Vision making a sound other than his shallow breathing and soft groans catches her attention, stops her from kissing at the skin exposed by the three buttons of his shirt she's gotten undone. "Wanda, I need to stop."

"Right," she says, and kisses him once more before sliding off his lap and to the other side of the couch, pulling her skirt down where it's ridden up around her thighs and turning to smile at him. That fades when she sees how sad he looks, and she reaches over for his hand and gently asks, "Vizh? What's wrong, babe?"

"I just...I'm sorry, Wanda," he says, and she just blinks at him in surprise. "It must be awful for you, being made to wait. I don't know why you want me."

" _Vision_." She moves to his side, tucking herself into him, so sad when he can't meet her eyes. "Vizh, I'm willing to wait. More than that, I'm  _happy_  to. You're worth waiting for. I don't just want you for sex, I want to be in love with you, don't you get that? You're kind, and you're gentle, and you're sweet, and you see so much beauty in everything and no one's ever looked at me the way you do. I love you."

"I love you too." She smiles when he finally meets her eyes, and kisses his shoulder, leaning into him in contentment. "And you really don't mind waiting? Truly? Even if I don't know how long it could be before I'm ready?"

"Even then," she says, and the way he smiles makes her heart skip a beat. "Even if it takes a year. Or longer. I'll still be here."

He kisses her then, sweet and soft, and she smiles giddily when he pulls away, so light with love. "Can I use your shower?" he asks, and she nods. "What time is everyone coming over?"

"Seven," she says, straightening herself up. "And we're going to tell them we're together. So I can be with you in front of everyone."

"You know," Vision says as he stands up, giving her the opportunity to admire him, "somehow I doubt they're going to be surprised that we're dating. At the very least, Sam knew immediately why you and Natasha being together made me so sad."

"Val made a comment that I've been distracting myself from true love for three years," she says, and Vision blushes. "And you know what? I think she might be right."

When the bathroom door clicks closed behind him, she has a moment to herself to just grin into the quiet, so overwhelmingly happy that she can't keep it inside. Back to reality, a reality that now has her in love with the best person she could've ever asked for, the kind of person she could only have dreamed about finding. And he loves her back. He loves her, and she can believe that, it never sounds false when he says it. Every time he kisses her she knows it, it's there in every time he reaches for her hand or gives her that soft smile or says her name.

The buzzer to her apartment door rings just as she finishes making herself look like she didn't just spend most of her day frantically packing and travelling. Opening her bedroom door, she finds Vision already offering her a glass of wine, leaning down to kiss her forehead and making a pleased flush colour her cheeks beneath her make-up. Crossing the room before she does something silly like spend her entire evening kissing her boyfriend instead of letting her friends upstairs, she says, "Come on up!" brightly into the intercom.

Valkyrie is the first through the door, trailing the dark-haired girl Wanda recognises as the girl from Gamora's birthday party, and immediately envelopes her in a hug. "I am so so happy for you I could scream!" she squeals in Wanda's ear, and Wanda giggles into her friend's shoulder. "Vision! You finally said something! I'm so proud!"

"I never told you I had feelings for Wanda," Vision says before Wanda can ask the question, and Valkyrie rolls her eyes.

"Please, it was so obvious," she says, then reaches for the new girl's hand, pulling her close and smiling smugly. "You guys remember Mantis, right? One of Gamora's friends?"

For a moment, jealousy at the memory of the way Mantis stared at Vision all night makes Wanda bristle in anger, stepping closer to her boyfriend. But she can see that the look of puppy love has been entirely transferred to Valkyrie, the two of them folding themselves into the armchair, and relaxes enough for them to all talk about their holidays until the buzzer starts to go off again.

As usual when hanging around with her friends, Wanda's apartment goes from empty to full in a matter of minutes when everyone arrives together, and the lack of space means no one will be suspicious to see her curl up to Vision, sharing a pizza with him and smiling at him when he refills her glass, the conversation flowing with everyone's stories about their Christmas. She only gets distracted from just curling up to him, his hand on the small of her back and his chest gently rising and falling beneath her cheek, when Darcy says, "So what happened between you two over the holidays?"

"What do you mean?" Wanda asks, straightening herself up a little.

"Oh my God, you guys totally fucked, didn't you?!" Sam says, and even though she wills it not to happen Wanda can feel herself blushing. "You  _did_!"

"No we didn't!" she protests while Vision just looks at a loss for words, and she smiles at him, taking his hand before turning to their friends and saying, "But we're together now."

A beat of silence, everyone staring at them. Then Sharon silently holds her hand out towards Sam, who glares and drops a ten dollar bill into her hand. "You guys couldn't have held out until Valentine's Day?" he asks sulkily, and Wanda can only shake her head at her friends.

"I'm afraid not," Vision says, finally finding his voice, and Wanda smiles and curls into him when his arm wraps further around her, pulling her close. "I love her too much to keep waiting."

"You know what this means, Sam?" Jane says, her engagement ring flashing in the light as she turns to Sam with an angelic smile. "You and T'Challa are now the only singles ones in this group."

Looking up from the bottle of some expensive Wakandan liquor that he brought home with him after spending weeks going about the duties of an heir to a throne, T'Challa grins and says, "Well, actually I'm not single. There's a girl."

Looking around the room, Sam says, "You've got to be kidding me," and refills his wine glass to spilling point.

* * *

"Can I?" Vision's whisper against her neck makes Wanda gasp feeling his lips against her skin, and she nods without hesitation, lifting her arms for him to pull her dress over her head, that same wonder in his eyes when he looks at her as there has been every time they've ended up lying one of their beds kissing, undressing each other but never going further than making out. "You are  _so_  beautiful," he breathes, hands skating up her sides, and she yanks him in to to bring their mouths back together, groaning at the still-exciting feeling of being pressed skin to skin with him.

It's the fourth time in a week they've ended up like this, both down to their underwear in his bed, pressed against each other. His mouth moves down to her neck, the same spot that's had a semi-permanent bruise there for the entire month since they got together, and she gasps, " _Vizh_ ," and clutches at him, hips moving against his. "Oh my  _God_ , stop. We need to stop."

"Why?" he asks, nipping at her neck and making her moan, involuntarily grinding into him before she stops herself.

"You're not ready, and if you keep -  _fuck_  - if you keep doing that we're going to get carried away," she manages to say, so distracted by his lips on her neck and his fingertips tracing up her back, brushing against the clasp of her bra.

"But I don't want to stop," he says, looking up at her, pupils blown wide and dark with lust, and her heart stops, her breath catching in her throat. "Wanda, I...I bought condoms. I'm ready."

"Are you sure?" she asks, and he nods, reaching up to kiss her, and she tries not to lose herself in his mouth. Even though it's very difficult when he's mostly-naked beneath her and his erection is pressed against her inner thigh and robbing her mind of every thought except how badly she wants to fuck him. Pushing him gently away, she tries to catch her breath and asks, "You're not...you're not just saying that because you're horny and you're going to regret this later?"

"I'm sure," he says, looping her hair behind her ear and smiling at her tenderly. "I want you. I've waited long enough."

"But...but we've only been together a month," she says, trying hard not to notice that he's tracing his fingertips over her bra strap. "I told you, I'll wait as long as you need."

"You already have," he says, cupping her cheek and smiling into her eyes. "I love you. I trust you. I want to have sex with you."

She kisses him, arms around his neck, and his mouth almost instantaneously opens against hers, and she moans against his lips. "I'm so ready," he breathes when she pulls away, eyes glazed over with desire. "I just want...I want it to be good for you."

"It will be," she says, and he smiles. "We don't need condoms though, babe. I'm on the pill." Kissing him softly, she says, "The gesture is very sweet."

"I was just in the store, it was impulsive," he says, and meets her eyes. "I want you."

"I want you too," she breathes, and kisses him, losing herself in him. Reaching for the hand still resting on her back, pulling her close, she lifts his hand to the clasp of her bra and whispers, "Do it."

He gazes at her for a long moment after unclasping her bra, silent, until she starts to feel a little self-conscious. "Wanda," he finally breathes, and meets her eyes, pulling her close. "You're stunning." A kiss dropped on her lips. "Breathtaking." Another kiss. " _Beautiful_."

Falling into the kiss, she pushes him gently down onto his back, tracing her hands from his face down his chest, gentle caresses to calm her sudden nerves. "You're beautiful too," she says, and the way way he smiles could light up the world.

"I think you're more nervous than me," he says with a gentle chuckle, cupping her face between his hands, and she can only duck her head bashfully.

"I've never taken someone's virginity before," she admits, and he pulls her down to kiss her, so gently.

"I'm glad it's you," he says, and she kisses him again, passionate, and he intensifies the kiss, grinding his hips into hers, and when he gasps out, " _Wanda_ ," she can only groan in reply, overwhelmed by the moment and the trust he has in her.

Not that it stops her stomach twisting with nerves when they're both naked, skin to skin and exchanging soft kisses. "Are you ready?" she asks, the sound of her own voice startling after the minutes of quiet.

"Yes," he breathes, and follows her when she straightens up, keeping their gaze locked. "I love you, Wanda."

"I love you too," she says, and kisses him one more time, unable to help the feeling like it's the calm before the storm. Their relationship won't be the same after sex. Their friendship will be different. It already is, now that they've seen each other naked.

He shifts beneath her, and whispers, " _Please_." Desperation in his voice, and in his grip tightening on her waist just for a moment. Enough to give her the spike of confidence she needs to sink onto him, her eyelids fluttering and keeping her from watching him.

" _Oh_." His voice brings her back to reality, lost in sensation and desire and  _need_ , and he's looking at her with such wonder in her eyes that it takes her breath away, gripping at her waist when she adjusts herself slightly and gasps. "Wanda, that's-  _oh_."

" _God_ , you were worth the wait," she whispers, and surges forward to kiss him, swallowing the broken moan he lets out when she starts to move. She tips their foreheads together, her own breathing harsh, head swimming with how good he feels, spinning with the simple knowledge that she's having sex with  _Vision_ , her best friend, he is  _inside her_  and it feels even better than her wildest fantasies could've imagined. For a long moment, time falling away, they stay like that, kissing slow and intense as she grinds against him, until she twists her hips in a way that makes him let out a long moan, music to her ears.

" _Wanda_ ," he gasps out, like it's the only word he knows how to say, and she smiles slightly. "I...I..."

"You don't have to -  _fuck_  - say anything," she soothes him, brushing a gentle kiss to his temple. "Do you...do you want me to do anything?"

"Maybe...maybe a little faster?" he says, so shyly, and she grips the headboard and does as he asks, and his head falls back against his pillows. " _Oh_...oh  _fuck_ , Wanda."

"Feel good?" she asks, unable to articulate anything more than that, and he nods, gripping at her, heavy breathing punctuated by his groans.

"Kiss me," he breathes, and she leans down immediately, capturing his lips and moaning when his tongue brushes hers. He breaks the kiss, turning his head against the pillows, gripping her hips tight enough to hurt. "Wanda, I...I'm so sorry, I can't...I'm going to..."

"Hey, it's okay," she says soothingly, kissing him gently. "Let go, Vizh."

Nothing in her life will ever be as beautiful as the way he says her name when he comes. She's sure of that. His eyes closed in ecstasy, the flush in his face spilling down over his neck and collarbones, hands squeezing at her hips. She stays close to him, showering his face with soft, tender kisses, finishing with a kiss on each closed eyelid, stroking his hair and holding him close.

"Are you okay?" she asks softly after a long silence but for his breathing slowing down, and when he looks up there are tears in his eyes, and her heart clenches with fear. "Did I hurt you?"

"No, I...it was perfect," he breathes, and she smiles down at him, sure that she looks giddy and ridiculously smitten and not caring. Sadness shadows his face, and he says, "But I wanted it to be good for you too."

"It was," she says firmly, and he looks up at her in surprise.

"But you didn't-"

"No, but that doesn't matter," she says, and he still looks surprised. "This is about you. It's not my first time, it's yours. I don't care whether I get mine - if that was all that mattered to me, I wouldn't bother with any of this. I want you to have the best experience. Because I love you, and I want to make you feel good."

"You did," he says, and she can't help the smug smile that spreads across her face. "You  _really_ did. I...I've been thinking about that since New Year's."

"Me too," she says softly, and he blushes, and she laughs softly and pulls him in for a lingering kiss. "But I'm glad we waited. This was so  _special_ , Vizh."

"I'm sorry that it didn't last long," he says mournfully, and she shakes her head at him.

"It was perfect," she promises. "Everything doesn't have to happen tonight. We have all the time in the world."

"You're amazing," he says breathlessly, and she beams at him. "Really, you are. Do people tell you that enough?"

"It only matters from you," she says, and kisses him. "I'm gonna shower very quickly, okay? Then we can spend the rest of the night together."

"I made paprikash," he says, straightening up when she carefully climbs off him. "I'll go heat it up."

"Did you plan for this to happen?" she asks, teasing, and he grins at her.

"Does hoping count as planning?" he asks, and she shakes her head fondly and leans into to kiss him. When she pulls away, there are tears in his eyes again, and his voice is tremulous with emotion when he whispers, "Thank you."

"Vizh, you don't have to thank me for sleeping with you," she says.

"No, thank you for everything," he says, and she turns back to him. "Thank you for being patient. Thank you for understanding. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being my friend, and my family. Thank you for loving me."

"You're welcome," she says softly, frustrated at the tears prickling behind her own eyes, and leans into to kiss him again, cupping a hand to his cheek and feeling a tear warm against her skin. "Don't cry. Please."

"I'm sorry," he says, wiping at his eyes, and she smiles so affectionately. "I just...I love you so much."

"I love you too," she says, and they smile at each other one more time before she stands out of bed, grabbing his spare towel and sliding into the bathroom. Only to spend five minutes leaning back against the door, grinning helplessly to herself.

* * *

Leaning closer to the mirror to try and get her eyeliner wing to the sharpest point possible, Wanda sags back into Vision when he kisses her neck, arm winding around her. "Vizh, c'mon, we should've left ten minutes ago and we need to get to this party," she says, though making no attempt to push him away.

"Counter-proposal: we don't go," he says, pressing another lingering kiss to her neck.

"It's Quill's birthday, Vizh, c'mon," she says, though the little voice of her libido at the back of her mind is screaming for her to ignore social obligations and fall back into bed with her boyfriend. Reaching for the earrings he bought her for Valentine's Day, matching the necklace already around her neck from Christmas, she slides them into her ears and shakes out her skirt.

"But I wanna stay here," he murmurs, sliding a hand up beneath her shirt, goosebumps rising on her skin in the wake of his touch.

"Quill won't notice if we sneak off during the party," she says, and Vision's eyes light up, and she giggles at him. "Go change, we're gonna be so late."

"Yes ma'am," he teases, and she smirks at him and slaps his ass as he walks away, grinning to herself in the mirror.

Once they actually get out of her apartment, delayed again by a completely necessary make-out session on the couch when Vision leaves the bathroom in the one particular pair of jeans that make his ass look ridiculously incredible, it thankfully takes them only fifteen minutes to get to Peter's apartment. The lights are low inside, bodies crowded into his surprisingly roomy studio apartment, and the birthday boy himself emerges from the crowd clearly already high, grinning.

"Darcy said you guys would be late!" he says, waving a hand vaguely in the direction Darcy must be. "Something about having a ridiculously active sex life?"

"Well she'd be right about that," Wanda says proudly, her hand creeping into Vision's back pocket as if drawn by magic. "Happy birthday, Quill. Where's the rest?"

"Your lot are over on the couches, except Valkyrie, pretty sure her and Mantis went with Rocket to get Chinese," Peter says, brow furrowing with the effort of remembering. "Or maybe not. God knows, we invited like fifty people."

"I can see that," Vision says, and Wanda giggles and pulls him further into the party, finding Sam, T'Challa, Darcy, Ian and Maria all spread out across the couches, empty bottles crowding the floor.

"You're late!" Darcy says immediately, nudging an unopened bottle of wine towards them and throwing two cups across the table.

"We got distracted," Vision says, and leans in to kiss Wanda's neck, making her shiver and smile up at him. Wrapping his arms around her, he tugs her into his lap when they sit down, and she curls smugly into him.

"I think if there's such a thing as having too much sex you've discovered it," Sam says sourly, cracking the top off another beer and throwing the cap in the vague direction of the trash can.

"Just because you're not getting any, Wilson," Wanda teases, to raucous laughter and Sam glaring at her.

"Don't be jealous, Sam," Vision says lightly. "You'll meet someone one day."

"You just won't get to have a college sweetheart like the rest of us," Maria says smugly, just as Sharon comes back to the group with another six pack of beer, folding herself down next to her girlfriend and kissing her.

"Hey Sam, does your mom know that you're now the only single one in the friend group?" Darcy teases, and Sam looks mutinous, glaring into his bottle. "Poor thing might never get grandchildren."

"Keep my mom's name out of your filthy mouth," Sam snaps, to more raucous laughter. As the conversation turns to plans for Sharon's rapidly-approaching birthday, Wanda smirks when her shifting in his lap makes Vision's hand slide a little higher on her thigh, fingertips slipping beneath her skirt. Draining her glass, she smiles down at her boyfriend and makes no attempt to move his hand back to a more company-appropriate position.

The longer the night goes, the more lights seem to go out, leaving the studio lit only by a few lamps and whatever light creeps under the door from the bathroom. Crowds of people have left, the noise has quieted, and Wanda is nodding along to whatever Peter is frantically explaining to her while Vision's fingers trace over her back beneath her shirt, absorbed in his touch skating over her skin. Completely lost in him, having to subtly cross her legs to try and stave off the urge to drag him somewhere more private and fuck him.

"You two are great together," Peter says, bringing her back into the moment and stalling Vision's hand in tracing the strap of her bra towards the clasp. "Seriously. I knew it was coming, but you're really in love and stuff. Makes me kinda jealous."

"You need to talk to Gamora," Wanda urges him. "She likes you back. I know you guys slept together."

"Everyone does," Peter says mournfully. "Because Groot can't keep his stupid mouth shut."

Shaking her head at the mention of yet another of Peter's weird friends, none of whom she's managed to meet during the entire party - though that might be her own fault for spending an hour of it pressing Vision against the wall in a shadowy corner - Wanda leans over to put a sympathetic hand on Peter's knee. "You just need to talk to her," she says gently. "We did, and look where we are now. If she slept with you, there's obviously something going on.  _Talk_  about it!"

"I know, but it's so hard," Peter says mournfully, then looks at someone over Wanda's shoulder and winces. " _Shit_ , forgot I invited them. Your ex alert, Maximoff."

Vision's hand slides out from beneath her shirt to curve around her waist, arm tightening protectively around her, when she turns and sees Natasha hand in hand with Steve. As Wanda watches, her ex-girlfriend's eyes drift to Vision's arm around her, and her lip curls in contempt.

"You got a problem, Natasha?" she hears herself ask, astounded by the venom in her own voice.

"Oh, no," Natasha says, voice all false syrupy sweetness. "I just think it's funny how you're clearly over me but you still refuse to let me back into the group. Guess you were never really my friend, huh?"

"Actually, we would be fully willing to let you back into the group if you'd ever apologised for breaking my heart and showing up to a party with Steve a week later," Wanda snaps. "Exactly how long was it before you two got together? An hour?"

"As if you can talk about getting together with someone new too fast," Natasha scoffs, and Wanda sees red. "How long before you ended up in Vision's bed?"

"An amount of time that respected the fact that you broke my heart," Wanda says, feeling anger rather than sadness spike in her blood when Natasha puts her arm demonstratively through Steve's. She's long over the girl who used her as a substitute for someone else. "You never wanted me, did you?"

"As a matter of fact, no," Natasha says coldly. "You're just desperate for someone to love you, aren't you?"

"Not any more," Wanda says, equally coldly, Vision's arm around her grounding and comforting all at once. "Maybe you should try finding someone who truly loves and respects you sometime, Natasha."

"Maybe you should try dating someone who is emotionally unavailable and unfaithful to you from day one," Natasha says, and Wanda sneers.

"I did."

Natasha's lips curls, her eyes gleam with anger, and she says, "You know what, Wanda? I was going to keep this to myself, for the sake of our friendship. But I guess that's over, so guess what - I wasn't just emotionally unfaithful."

"How dare you?!" Vision breaks his silence, and is on his feet, taller than both Natasha and Steve, glaring down at them, angrier that she's ever seen him. "How dare you hurt her? First you break her heart, then you ruin her Christmas, then you try to do this?!"

"Don't think just because you're the flavour of the month you can involve yourself in our arguments," Natasha says dismissively, and Wanda has never seen red as vividly as she does at the insult.

"Get out," Vision snaps, and takes a threatening step forward. "You heard me. Get out of our lives. The very  _fact_  that you could have Wanda wanting you and you chose to thrown it away - you chose to  _cheat_  - tells me exactly what kind of person you are, Romanoff. And you, Rogers - well, I'd love to think better of you, but it takes two to be unfaithful."

"Sure does, and you let Wanda be unfaithful to me," Natasha says, and Vision's face goes dark with fury.

"Unlike either of you, I'm considerate enough of other people's feelings to ignore my own until an appropriate time," he snaps. "Now leave us alone. We're done with you."

When Natasha and Steve do walk away, leaving a lightness in the air of having gotten to scream at the girl who hurt her so badly, and having had someone  _defend_  her, Wanda pulls Vision back down to her level and whispers, "You're hot when you're angry."

"Really?" he asks, and she smirks at him.

" _Very_." She yanks him, hard, into a kiss that's instantaneously intense, pulling him down on top of her. Where they stay, wrapped up in each other, until Sam, the last straggler of their friend group, finds them. After several exclamations of disgust over catching them with Vision's hands up Wanda's shirt and hers on his ass, the three of them leave together.

Obviously, Wanda drags Vision to her room rather than letting him go back to his apartment. Gets them both out of their clothes as quickly as possible, and groans out his name when he kisses a trail from her shoulder to her ear and whispers, "I want to make you scream."

He proceeds to. Her faith in his sexual prowess was, as it turns out, definitely justified.

* * *

Summer in Sokovia is the same as she remembers from the vaguest notions of her early childhood here. The sun high in the sky, illuminating the beautiful scenery of her home country, but the wind up, wheeling dust along the cobbled streets. Clutching Vision's hand, smiling when he pauses to take pictures of the architecture that's blossomed up since she left, she pulls him closer and says, "I can't thank you enough for this."

"I wanted to see the country that gave me the most beautiful person in the world," he says, and she rolls her eyes fondly. Not that it stops her from kissing him at the compliment.

Three weeks since graduation. Vision starts an internship with the Manhattan office of Stark Industries that will probably lead to a lucrative career when they get back to the States. She has interviews lined up at every publishing house within a realistic commuting distance. Both of them now have degrees, diplomas away to be framed and hung up in their apartment.  _Theirs_. A new place, closer to Vision's workplace, one they'll make all their own. The first time they've officially lived together, but there hasn't been much of a change. They're so intertwined into each other's lives that nothing could ever really feel jarring.

"There's somewhere I want you to see," she says, and pulls him along the streets, past the bakery and the grocery store and a few obvious tourist trap stores.

The block of apartment buildings has been rebuilt since the civil war. Standing tall and proud against the sky, and Vision squeezes her hand comfortingly while she stands and stares. "I lived in that one," she says, pointing, and his arm winds around her, pulling her close. "Third floor. Apartment D. Two bedrooms, one bathroom. I shared with Pietro. Neither of us minded. We were too young to want our own space."

"This country is stunning," Vision says, and she smiles slightly. "Are you pleased to be back?"

"Yes," she says, definitively. There are painful memories here, but it's the place she was born. Where she had a family, and the happiness of a peaceful early childhood. A start. She wouldn't be who she is without Sokovia. "Let me show you the church."

Following the familiar path of Sunday mornings, Pietro whining and tugging on their father's arm, her skipping in her best clothes, delighted to show off a little, Wanda stops short at the sight of the graveyard. A memorial looms white at the entrance, thousands of names circling across the marble. "People who died in the civil war," Vision says quietly. "I looked at this online. Breathtaking. And they're all buried here too. Alphabetised gravestones."

Shaking, holding onto him tightly for comfort, she crosses the threshold into the graveyard, walking past the rows of gravestones marking those who died during fifteen years of bloody civil war. She gasps helplessly when she finds her family, three stones in a row, carefully maintained and each with flowers laid on the graves.

_DJANGO MAXIMOFF - SEPTEMBER 1974- FEBRUARY 2001. Husband, father, beloved community member. Sorely missed._

_MARYA MAXIMOFF - JULY 1975- FEBRUARY 2001. Wife, mother, sister. Mourned by an entire community._

_PIETRO MAXIMOFF - MARCH 1994 - FEBRUARY 2001. Brother and son. Survived along with his parents by his twin sister._

It takes Vision's hand on her back to bring Wanda back to reality, and she realises she's crying, tears hot on her cheeks. "I'm so sorry," she says into the air, hoping that, wherever they are, her family can hear her. "I'm sorry I never came back. I...I was young, and I was scared. I thought coming back here would make it hard to leave. But I know now. I know that I needed to come back. I need closure."

Pulling Vision closer, she says, "This is Vision. He's...well, I'm pretty certain he's the love of my life. He brought me here, Mama, he brought me back. And...and don't worry about me, Papa, because I'm going to be fine after I leave. I have a place to call home in the States. I have a degree now. I have job prospects. And I have Vizh. He makes me so happy. Pietro, I...I wish you could've know what it's like to be in love. It's  _magical_ , Pietro. There's no happiness like it."

Kissing her cheek, offering her a tissue to dab the tears off her face, Vision looks at the graves of her family and speaks too. "I promise I'm going to take care of her," he says firmly, and she smiles at the wind that blows. She can almost believe that it's her family, trying to speak to her. To tell her that they approve. "I'm going to love her with everything I have, for as long as she wants me to."

"Thank you," she manages to say, voice thick and high-pitched with emotion, and he smiles at her so tenderly that her breath catches. "Thank you for loving me."

"Always, Wanda," he whispers, and she leans against him in the quiet of the moment.

When they leave the graveyard behind, tear tracks glittering on Wanda's cheeks in the light of the evening sun, the cobbled streets winding back into the town where they're staying stretch out in front of them. After the first turn away from the graveyard, when her mind has strayed from thinking of her family to considering where they might go for dinner, or if they have enough in the bungalow they're staying in for her to cook another Sokovian dish for Vision, immersing both of them in the culture he's never known and she's half-forgotten, Vision stops her. "You okay?" she asks gently, and he smiles at her.

"Perfect," he says, lit from behind by the sun like he has a halo. Her angel. "This is perfect."

He goes to one knee, and her heart drops, renewed tears prickling behind her eyes. "Vizh..."

"Let me," he says, smiling more than she's ever seen. He takes a box from his pocket, twines the fingers of their right hands together, and beams up at her.

"Wanda Magdalena Maximoff, ever since I met you, you've been the most special person to me. I've never had anyone want me for as long as you. I fell in love with you over those years, every time you made me the most important person in your life, you've always been there for me. Being the person you choose to love has been the most extraordinary experience. If you'll have me, I want you every day for the rest of time. And I  _promise_ , I will do everything in my power to be what you need. To love you, and care for you, and make you happy, no matter what."

Clicking the box open, revealing the ring to match the necklace and earrings she's worn almost every day since he gave them to her and making her choke out a high-pitched fragment of a sob, he looks up at her with tear-glazed eyes and asks, "Wanda - will you marry me?"

"You  _ass_ ," she says through a sob, wiping desperately at her eyes "We talked about getting married  _two months ago_. I thought you'd forgotten I said I wanted to!"

"I never forget anything you say," he says softly, sweetly, and she giggles, the sound absurd with her crying. "So is that a-"

" _Yes_ ," she says, and his tears spill over to match hers. "Yes, Vizh, I want to marry you." Holding out her hand, she watches him slide the ring onto her third finger, the yellow jewel glowing bright in the sunlight, and can't help another sob. "I love you so much."

"I love you too," he says, and as he stands he captures her mouth in a kiss, clutching her so tightly that she's brought off her feet, tangling her legs around his waist and holding onto him. His skin is wet with tears, just like hers. As the summer breezes of Sokovian snatch at her hair and her skirt, she holds onto him, his lips on hers and the feeling of the ring he gave her on her finger.

In so many more ways than one, she's finally home.


End file.
